Potter Twin's & The Philosopher's Stone (Book 1)
by OWENSENJUYUKIKAYUGAUCHIHA
Summary: The First Adventure of Harry and Rose Potter.
1. Chapter 1

Everything around me was enveloped in darkness. Not a sound could be heard for miles away and the only thing I knew was that there was someone next to me holding onto my hand like I was their only lifeline. Although I couldn't actually see who it was, I knew that it was my brother with me. I could sense it through the familiar grip of his hand and, for some reason, I felt like that I would be safe from anything around me as long as he was by my side.

My heart suddenly quickened when I heard voices around me. It was impossible to understand what was being said, but I knew that it wasn't a good conversation judging by the tone. The grip on my hand tightened as a man's voice screamed something else and a sudden fear through across my body.

My eyes searches for the person that was creating this noise, but I found nothing but the blackness that I was bathed in. There was more yelling from a woman, but the man shrieked something loudly over her and my eyes widened. The blackness suddenly turned into a blinding green light that made me wish that I couldn't see anything. When I heard a sickening laugh surround me, I suddenly found myself screaming in fear and I closed my eyes hoping that it would all go away.

When the laugh went away, I couldn't shake the fear that had crept through my bones. The only thing I could hear now was the sound of my screams as they echoed around me. Then there was a sudden pounding on wood that sounded off next to me that made the screaming stop.

"Would you silence yourself girl!" an angry voice shouted. "You've woken up the whole house!"

My eyes flew open and I looked around to find that I was in a small, dimly lit room that I recognized to be the closet that I slept in every night. With a sudden rush of relief, I realized it had all been a dream - a dream I had every night, but a dream nonetheless. When I heard another loud tap on the door, I jumped and hit the shelf that was above my head.

"Get out of there now!" Aunt Petunia shouted. "Dudley's friend should be over soon and he hasn't even eaten breakfast!"  
I opened the door of my make-shift room and grabbed a stool that sat just around the corner of it so I could reach the clothes that sat on the shelves at the very top of the closet. Before I slept in here, this room had been my aunt's linen closet. Uncle Vernon had to pull out most of the lower shelves so I could have a place to sleep, but luckily it was a fairly large space for a closet and just large enough that my small body could fit in.

After finding the old, worn out clothes that had once belonged to my aunt, I rushed off towards the bathroom so I could change out of the enormous nightgown that I was given to wear. Once I was changed, I looked in the mirror and sighed at how ridiculous I looked. The dress I was wearing was a dull pink with little yellow flowers peppered all over it. This horrid thing had once belonged to Aunt Petunia and it didn't look anything like the dresses that the girls at school wore - that was probably why I was laughed at so much. If that wasn't the reason that they laughed at me, then it was because I was related to the school bully, Dudley Dursley, who hated my brother and me very much.

Dudley was my cousin, but there was nothing that we had in common other than the fact that my mother happened to his mother's sister. Dudley was a mean, oversized boy who liked to prey on anyone that was smaller than him - especially Harry and me. He had perfectly combed blonde hair on top of his abnormally pudgy head and had a loud mouth that constantly shouted for more sweets from his mother. Dudley always got what he wanted from his parents - there were no if's, and's, or but's about it.

Vernon and Petunia Dursley were one in the same and I hated them equally. Uncle Vernon was practically Dudley in adult form - the only differences seemed to be the color of their hair and Uncle Vernon's large, black mustache that sat perched above his upper lip. Like Dudley, Uncle Vernon had a temper, but his was ten times worse and he always took it out on Harry and me even when it wasn't our fault. Aunt Petunia, unlike her husband and son, was a frail, little woman that spent the majority of her time nosing around the neighborhood so she could figure out the town gossip. Although she didn't like us at all, she seemed to be less violent towards us and only became irritable when we spoke directly to her.

Harry and I were completely different than the family that we lived with. Harry, my twin brother, was an abnormally skinny boy with jet black hair that always looked messed up not matter how much you brushed it. Behind his round, constantly broken glasses he had bright green eyes that were identical to mine. Although I was his twin, we didn't really look that much alike. I had red hair that stretched down passed my shoulders and I had no need for glasses because my vision was nearly perfect.

One more thing that we shared in common were our scars and there wasn't anything normal about them. Harry's scar sat in the middle of his forehead and was in the shape of a lightning bolt along; whereas mine ran from the right side of my forehead, and disappeared into my hairline. It was only a couple of shades darker than my pale skin tone.  
"Come on Rose!" Harry shouted from outside of the bathroom.

I shook my head and focused on what was happening today as I pushed through the door and walked towards the kitchen to meet Harry where we would make breakfast. Today was Dudley's eleventh birthday which meant that Harry and I were going to be sent over to Mrs. Figg's house while he went out with a friend of his to have loads of fun without us. This year it was the zoo - something that I have dreamed of going to ever since I saw Dudley watching a show on television about how animals survive in the wild. Normally we're happy when we don't have to be around the Dursleys, but Mrs. Figg wasn't any better. She is an old woman that lives just down the street from us and she has to own about a million cats and takes the time to show us pictures of every single one of them while we're there. It's horrible.  
"Rose - get over here and make the eggs and toast," Aunt Petunia demanded when I stepped into the room behind Harry. "And you - take over the bacon."

I nodded and stepped over in front of the frying pan were the eggs were already starting to cook. I flipped them around in the pan and shoved a couple of pieces of bread in the toaster with my other hand. Just as I let out a loud yawn, I noticed that someone else had joined our group - Dudley was finally awake.

"Where are they?" Dudley asked expectantly.

"Your presents are right over there," Aunt Petunia said with excitement.

Only a few feet away from the kitchen table was an enormous pile of gifts for Dudley's birthday. I stared at my cousin in envy as he walked over to them. As usual he began to count each one of them to see just how many of them there were. If I even received one gift from the Dursleys I would be grateful, but there was not chance of that unless it was something that Aunt Petunia had found in the lost-and-found at the school. It had been years since either of us had gotten anything from them, but we learned just to accept that they didn't care enough to even acknowledge our birthday.

"Thirty-seven?" Dudley said in disbelief. "That's two less than last year!"

My heart sank in my chest. Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon were willing to give that many presents to a boy who hardly even deserved anything and they probably wouldn't even wish us a happy birthday when our day finally came around.  
"That's my boy, always wanting more out of life than what he gets," Uncle Vernon said proudly from behind his morning paper.

Harry let out a sigh as he set all of the bacon that he finished cooking onto a small plate and brought it over to the table to set down for breakfast. I followed behind him after the last two pieces of toast popped up and the bowl that I had was filled with eggs. When I set them down, Uncle Vernon immediately set his paper down and forked out his share while we all listened to Dudley's usual temper-tantrum.

"This isn't fair - I should have gotten more!" Dudley whined pathetically.

He began to pout and forced out a few fake tears that had Aunt Petunia racing over toward him so she could comfort him.

"How about we get you two more presents when we go out today?" she suggested desperately.

"I guess that will be okay," Dudley said as he wiped away the false tears with a smile on his face.

Harry frowned as we both grabbed a piece of toast. It was pathetic that Dudley always got his way just because he made himself cry. Sometimes I wished that worked for me, but at the same time I would never want to appear as horrible as my cousin.

Dudley came over and sat down next to his father and piled his plate high with all of the food that we had made for them. When the telephone rang behind the counter, Aunt Petunia stepped over and answered it just as Dudley kicked Harry's leg underneath the table.

"Stop that!" Harry said angrily and kicked right back.

"Knock it off Potter," Uncle Vernon spat as he grabbed for his coffee.

"But Dudley started it!" I said. "I saw him kick - "

"Shut your mouth," he retorted immediately.

It never mattered whether Harry and I were right in the situation - Uncle Vernon always took Dudley's side. One time I got yelled at because Dudley pushed me down and I actually managed to kick his feet out from underneath him. This was, in Uncle Vernon's opinion, my fault because I shouldn't have angered Dudley in the first place.

"Oh no," Aunt Petunia groaned as she hung up the phone. "Bad news Vernon - Mrs. Figg can't take them because she broke her leg."

"Can't someone else take them?" Uncle Vernon asked.

"Who else is there?" she asked. "No one else likes them."

A sudden burst of hope shot through me - we weren't going to have to spend the day with Mrs. Figg! Did this mean that we might actually get to stay at the house without the Dursleys being there?

"We could just stay here," Harry suggested, obviously thinking along the same lines as me.

"I don't think so," Aunt Petunia scoffed. "I'm not going to let you two ruin the house."

"We won't do anything wrong," I begged. "Please - "

"Not a chance," Uncle Vernon said.

"Vernon, I don't think we have any other choice," Aunt Petunia sighed. "We're just going to have to take them to the zoo with us."

If I didn't think that it would hurt my chances of going, I probably would have screamed out in joy. This couldn't have turned out any better for us than it had right now - Harry and I were going to get to go to the zoo! I could hardly contain my excitement!

"No!" Dudley shouted out in protest. "They can't go!"

"We don't have any other options," Aunt Petunia repeated miserably.

The tears suddenly began to fall from our cousin's eyes as he screamed and carried on about how we were going to ruin everything. But not even that could have destroyed my day - no matter how much he screamed and cried, we were still going to be going.

Harry sat still in his chair with a small smile on his face as he looked from our aunt to our uncle. When he caught my eye, his smile only widened, but we both tried to hide our excitement before they could notice that we were happy about this decision.

"They're going to ruin everything!" Dudley cried.

"No they won't Dudley, I'll make sure of it!" Aunt Petunia said over his loud cries. "Mummy will make sure that they don't destroy everything."

There was a knock on the door that told me that Dudley's friend had finally arrived. When Aunt Petunia rushed off to answer the door, Dudley stopped crying immediately and shot both of us the meanest look that he could. Uncle Vernon's face practically matched his son's as he pointed one of his large, sausage-like fingers at us.

"You two are not to start any funny business," he said through his teeth. "Is that understood?"

"Yes, sir," we both said at once.

"And if you do," he continued. "I will keep you in your rooms for a week."

"Yes, sir," we repeated.

When the kitchen door opened again, all focus went off of us and over to Aunt Petunia and the boy that was following her. My heart sank when I saw who it was that was crossing into the room. It was Piers Polkiss. During school last year, Piers had always made it a point to ruin my day on a regular basis. His favorite thing to do was make fun of the way that I dressed and the way that I looked in general. It was a usual thing of his to point out how ugly he thought my hair was and that I couldn't possibly have a soul because I was a ginger. At first, I ignored him thinking that he would just wouldn't say anymore if it didn't seem to bother me. However, it soon became a school trend to make fun of the ugly, ginger girl and her freak of a brother that no one liked.

"Please tell me that they aren't coming," Piers scoffed when he saw Harry and me sitting at the table.

"They have to," Dudley said in disgust. "No one else wants them around all day."

Piers and Dudley laughed at their taunts, but Harry and I kept quiet. We couldn't let his comments ruin our day and possibly jeopardize our chances of going to the zoo - after all, it wasn't often that we were given the opportunity to have a good day.

"Let's go," Uncle Vernon said shortly as he struggled to get his enormous body out of his chair. "Everyone out to the car."

Piers and Dudley ran out of the front door while Aunt Petunia rushed over to the counter in the kitchen where her purse sat. She gave us a look on her way back that made us stand up out of our chairs and run out to join our cousin and his friend in the back seats of the car. Harry and I were pushed into the very back seat because Dudley insisted that he sit closer to the door so he could get out before us.

Once we began moving down the road, Uncle Vernon began his usual speech to his wife about how idiotic the new employees at his office were. This, in my cousin's opinion, seemed to be a perfect opportunity to turn around and look at us both. Piers joined in after a moment and they just looked at us without saying a word.

"What?" Harry asked.

"Why do you have those scars?" Piers asked.

"We got them in a car crash," I said. "What does it matter to you anyway?"

"Because they make you look like freaks," Piers said.

"They don't need those scars to look like freaks," Dudley laughed.

"Would you just turn around?" Harry asked angrily. "We weren't bothering you."

"Just you being here bothers me, four-eyes," Piers said.

"Well, it is appropriate for us to take them to the zoo, isn't it?" Dudley said with a smirk.

"What do you mean?" Piers asked with a confused expression.

"We're going to the zoo," Dudley said. "They'll feel right at home with the other animals."

"Shut up!" I said.

"Don't you talk to them like that, Potter!" Uncle Vernon said. "And turn around boys - we're nearly there."

Dudley and Piers laughed and turned back so they were sitting right in their seats and began talking about a television show that they watched the other day. Harry and I let out a sigh and gave each other a comforting smile before we began to look out of the window.

It wasn't too much longer before we found ourselves parked at the entrance to the zoo. As soon as we came to a stop, Dudley and Piers threw their seat belts off and pushed the door open so they could run, or waddle in Dudley's case, toward the line. Harry and I moved quickly after them, but Aunt Petunia grabbed the back of my dress and pulled me back.

"There's no need to run," she said with a stern look.

When Harry saw that I had been held back, he slowed down his pace and waited for our aunt and uncle to get ahead of us. Once they did, he gave me an apologetic look and I just shrugged.

Ever since I was a little girl, Aunt Petunia was always trying to get me to stop "acting like a boy." She made it a point to say something at least once a day that pointed out how "unladylike" I was when around other people. It was probably just to humiliate me, but I tried not to let it bother me too much.

After Uncle Vernon paid for our tickets, I felt the full excitement of being able to go to the zoo as I stepped through the gates. All around us, as far as the eye could see, there were animals of all sorts that I had only ever seen before in books from school. The first ones that Harry and I ran to were the Bonobos. One of the small ones was jumping around at its mother's feet as she sat watching her child. They were some of the happiest looking animals, despite their captivity, and it almost made me jealous that they had someone nice to take care of them while Harry and I did not.

"Looks like your mother, don't you think?" Piers sneered at Harry.

Harry started to say something, but I shook my head to stop him. Getting in a fight now would not make things any better. Besides, what did it matter what Piers thought anyway? He was friends with Dudley, so there was no way that he was that clever.

It wasn't until the Reptile Room that we met up with the Dursleys again. Dudley was poking a glass cage hard with his pudgy fingers while the others stood around him looking into the cage to see what would happen. When Harry and I stepped over to see what was inside of the glass, the others walked away.

"This is boring," Dudley complained.

Once they waddled away to go look at some turtles, we stepped closer and saw the large Boa Constrictor that was laying inside. Seeing the size of the snake made me wonder why they had chosen such a small cage for something that looked so big. No wonder it looked so sad in there.

"Don't listen to Dudley," Harry spoke to the snake. "I think that this place is very interesting. He's just angry that you won't listen to him."

Much to our surprise, the snake moved closer to where we were standing and it began to look from one of us to the other. Maybe it knew that we weren't as mean as Dudley, or maybe it was just curious.

"Do you think he can hear us?" I asked Harry.

Harry shrugged and smiled back at the Boa Constrictor once it was at our eye level. Now that it was stretched out, I could see just how massive the snake really was. I can't imagine how Dudley could have thought that this amazing creature was so boring. Then again, he wasn't exactly the smartest of people.

"Do you get that a lot?" I asked the snake. "People bothering you?"

Harry and I jumped back when it began to nod. We looked at each other in shock and then back at the snake.  
"I think it understood you!" Harry said in surprise.

"B-but it's a snake," I stammered. "I'm sure that it was just moving its head, that's all."

We stepped back to the snake and I tilted my head with the snake as it observed the two of us. Just when I was about to ask it something else to see if it really understood us, I felt a great push come from behind and I fell to the ground right on top of Harry.

"Look at the snake!" Dudley shouted. "It's moving!"

A great fury went through me as I stared at my cousin. What gave him the right to just push us to the ground whenever he wanted? It just wasn't fair that he always got his way. Besides, he already had his turn with the snake! Why should he get to look at it again when he thought that it was boring?

It was just seconds after he pushed us that the most unbelievable thing happened right in front of us. Dudley had his face pressed up to the glass, looking in at the snake, at one moment when, right before our eyes, the glass vanished and he fell face first into the pit that the snake was laying.

"Dudley!" Aunt Petunia shouted.

She was the only one that seemed to have noticed Dudley at that moment. The rest of the zoo turned and people began to scream as the Boa Constrictor that we had been observing only moments ago began slithering out of its cage and out into the open where everyone else was standing.

"The snake is out!" Piers shouted.

Everyone went into a panic and began to run, but Harry and I laid motionless on the ground where we had been pushed as the snake slithered right past us.

"Thanks."

My jaw dropped and Harry looked at me as the snake slithered out of sight. Did that snake just talk or was that just our imagination?

"Did it just - ?" Harry began.

"I think so," I said.

Then, at once, we both began to smile. We couldn't believe that this had just happened and the moment was only made better when we looked up to see Uncle Vernon fishing Dudley out of the cage.

"Into the car!" Uncle Vernon shouted. "All of you - now!"


	2. Chapter 2

The car ride back to 4 Privet Drive was completely silent. Uncle Vernon, who seemed to be driving more aggressively than usual, was practically fuming on the spot and looked like he was about ready to explode from anger. Everyone else, Aunt Petunia included, sat quietly in their seats and eyed Uncle Vernon cautiously, just waiting for him to blow up.

When the car was put into park, everyone scrambled out of the car. Harry and I quickly walked to the door, but we hardly made it though before we were being pulled backward by our clothing by Uncle Vernon. He allowed the rest of the company to go through to the sitting room while he pulled us to the side and glared at us for a moment, trying to find the words that he was going to use.

"I know this was your fault," he breathed. "And don't think for a minute that you're just going to get away with this - "  
"We didn't do anything, Uncle Vernon!" I said.

"We weren't even near the glass!" Harry added.

"It doesn't matter!" Uncle Vernon shouted. "I know that you two were behind this! Now go to your cupboards - no meals for the week!"

Harry and I glanced at each other in horror. We were going to be stuck in the darkness for a week for something that we didn't even cause. It was hardly fair to do that when we misbehaved, but this was unthinkable.

"That isn't fair!" I shouted. "We didn't - "

Uncle Vernon picked me up and threw me over his shoulder as he grabbed onto my brother's collar and threw him into the cupboard under the stairs. Harry pounded on the locked door as Uncle Vernon carried me, kicking and screaming, toward the linen closet to lock me into it.

"Let us out!" Harry shouted. "We didn't do it - we swear!"

Uncle Vernon didn't listen to any of our protests. Instead, he went into the kitchen and slammed the door behind him so he wouldn't have to listen to another word we had to say. Instead of wasting our breath and energy, we both fell silent and prepared ourselves for the week ahead.

This sort of punishment wasn't unusual for Uncle Vernon to give us. When he said that we would be in the cupboards for a week, he meant every word of it. The only time that we were aloud outside of them was to use the bathroom, and the only other time that our doors were opened was to throw in the leftovers that Dudley couldn't shove down his throat (which meant that we hardly got anything each day). Although she never said it, I had noticed the sorrowed look on Aunt Petunia's face each morning when she fed it. Maybe it was just my wishful thinking, but I could have sworn that she was feeling guilty for doing this to us. But it wasn't like she was putting a stop to it, so she wasn't any better than her husband.

However, when the night came around and the Dursleys went to sleep, Harry and I would find a way out. When we began to hear their snoring, Harry would pick through the lock on his door and then come to open my door up. We would quickly and quietly walk into the kitchen to get something substantial to eat and drink. We had never been caught doing this before, and we had no intention of being caught in the future. We were careful enough to pass through unnoticed.

When our time finally finished, and my muscles were just about cramped up from having been stuck in that small space for so long, Harry and I both agreed that we had to do our best to stay on the better side of Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia. Even though we had the suspicion that our aunt wouldn't request the same punishment, we still took the precautions necessary.

The first morning we were out, I practically ran to get ready to make sure I didn't anger anyone, and I found that Harry had moved much faster and was already at the front door getting the mail.

"Has he done any yelling?" I whispered to Harry, making sure that we weren't heard.

"Not yet," Harry whispered back. "He seems like he's in a better mood today."

We began walking toward the kitchen when Harry stopped suddenly. I continued walking for a second before I turned to look at my brother in confusion. Harry's eyes were wide open in shock as he stared down at one of the envelopes in his hands.

"What's wrong?" I asked him as I walked over next to him.

"I-it's for you," Harry stammered.

"What?" I asked as I ripped it from his hands.

"There's one for me as well," Harry held up the letter.

I stared in astonishment at the envelope that I held in my hand. It seemed like an older piece of stationary, but very clean and professional looking. On the front, in green, very neat handwriting read:  
 _Miss R. Potter  
The Old Linen Closet  
4 Privet Drive  
Little Whinging  
Surrey._

The only difference between my letter and Harry's appeared to be the name and the location, his reading _The Cupboard under the Stairs_. Both of us, stunned in complete disbelief, just stared at the envelope for a moment.

"Where's the mail, boy!" Uncle Vernon shouted from the other room.

"Coming, Uncle Vernon!" Harry shouted back.

Harry looked at me in wonder and I already knew what he was thinking. Where could these letters be coming from? No one ever wrote to us! And how could they possibly have known where we slept at night?

"Who do you think it is?" Harry asked me as we approached the kitchen door.

"Only one way to find out," I said excitably as we walked into the kitchen.

I slowly tore open the envelope as I made my way to my seat. Since we were having cereal that morning, there was no need for me to rush around to cook something for my aunt, uncle, and cousin. This only meant that I could focus my full attention on the letter.

"What on Earth are you doing?" Uncle Vernon demanded when he saw me pulling a piece of parchment out of the envelope.

"I'm opening my letter," I told him.

"Your letter?" my uncle questioned. "No one writes to you!"

When Uncle Vernon saw that Harry had one as well, he snatched them both from our hands and I felt my heart sink in my chest. I should have known better than to have let him see that we got something in the mail - he spoils every little piece of hope that we had in our days.

"Those are our letter!" Harry told him as Dudley walked through the door.

"What do you mean you have a letter?" Dudley scoffed as he stepped behind his father. "People have to like you to send you letters."

I was about to make a retort, but my attention was drawn away from my cousin when I saw the blood drain from Uncle Vernon's face as his eyes became wider with every word that he read. He quickly closed the letter and turned to our aunt.

"Petunia - come look," Uncle Vernon said in a panic.

"What is it, dear?" Aunt Petunia asked as she walked over with a cup of tea in hand.

"Dudley, step away!" our uncle shouted at his son.

Dudley stomped over to his chair and mumbled about how unfair it was. I wanted to hit him in the head for thinking that he had the right to read what was ours without us even knowing what it was ourselves.

I watched as Aunt Petunia read the first sentence. Within seconds, she let out a gasp of horror and let her cup of tea fall to the floor and shatter. She quickly found her chair and fell into it as she stared at her husband in shock.

"How did they find us?" Uncle Vernon asked.

"Who?" Harry and I asked at once.

Both of them looked at the three of us, somehow looking like they forgot that we were even in the room. Moving faster than I had ever seen him move, Uncle Vernon jumped out of his chair and pointed toward the door.

"Out!" he shouted. "Everyone out of the room!"

"Not without our letters!" Harry shouted.

"NOW!" Uncle Vernon demanded.

He pushed each one of us out of the kitchen, Dudley included. All of us protested, but we were no match for an angry Uncle Vernon was determined to get us away from the room and our letters.

"What are they about?" Dudley demanded once the kitchen door was shut behind us.

"How should we know?" I asked him. "Your father took them from us before we could look at them!"

The two of us argued for a moment before I noticed what Harry was doing. He had his ear pressed up to the door, listening in to the conversation that our aunt and uncle having. Dudley and I seemed to have the same idea as we both wrestled to get to the best spot. Of course, being as he was at least three times my size, he won the better and I was stuck listening in through the bottom of the door.

"I thought you said that we could get it out of them," whispered Uncle Vernon angrily from the other side.  
"We did everything we could, Vernon," Aunt Petunia said hopelessly. "We should have known that this would happen eventually - just look who their parents were."

"We should have never let them into this house," he grunted. "Just imagine what they could have done to Dudley."

"It's too late now," his wife sighed. "No one will take them...what are we going to do?"

"There is no way that we are sending them to that place," Uncle Vernon insisted. "They won't get a dime out of us to get this nonsense into their heads."

"So we just ignore them?" Aunt Petunia asked.

"They can't bother us forever," he said. "We just won't respond."

"Vernon, I know these kinds of people," she said skeptically. "They aren't like us at all - they may never stop."

"They have to," he insisted. "We will put an end to this Petunia. They cannot force us to do anything that we don't want to."

The conversation seemed to be over at that moment and, when we heard footsteps, we all raced as far away from the door as we could. Of course, Dudley didn't make it that far, but Harry and I sat in the sitting room acting like we hadn't heard a thing.

The letters didn't stop coming after Uncle Vernon burnt the first two. Days and days went by that they came by the dozen. Whoever it was that was trying to contact us seemed to be persistent each day of the week.

The next morning, after another letter came in the mail, Uncle Vernon walked up to us seeming more twitchy than I had ever seen him before. Although he was trying to keep a calm look on his face, he looked like he was struggling to not have a raging fit.

"I've been thinking," Uncle Vernon said to Harry and me. "Maybe those room of yours are getting a little small for you two."

My eyes flickered over to Harry in surprise. Even though what Uncle Vernon said was true, I hardly doubted that this was something that he had just realized. We were two ten year old children that had been squeezing into closets to sleep since the night that we arrived on their doorstep and I hardly thought that he had just come to discover that this was unnecessary.

"So I've been thinking that maybe it's about time for the two of you to move into the extra bedroom upstairs," he continued. "I think that ought to do. Now get to it, there isn't a moment to waste."

It only took a single trip for Harry and me to gather our stuff out of our closets and into the smallest bedroom upstairs. Harry made it up there first and set his stuff on the first bed that he came to. Only feet away, just across from a large pile of Dudley's old and broken toys was the bed that I was to sleep on.

"This isn't fair!" Dudley shouted at his mother across the hall from us. "That is my room! I need it for my things!"

"I'm sorry, Dudley-dear," Aunt Petunia sighed. "But they need to be in that room. They're much too big to be in those closets."

Harry sighed and sat down on his bed with a look of defeat. All our lives we wanted to be in a proper bedroom, but this isn't how we wanted it to be.

"They're just doing this because of those letters," Harry complained.

"Do you think so?" I asked.

"Why else would they move us?" he sighed. "It had our rooms on the envelopes."

"How do you think they knew where we slept anyway?" I asked. "Do you think that it's someone that we know?"

"I don't know," Harry murmured. "I just wish that we would have read those letters when we got the chance."

Each day that the letters came, our uncle began to grow angrier and more desperate to stop them from arriving. On the third day, Uncle Vernon boarded up the mail slot to stop them from getting into the house. That seemed to work out just fine until they began arriving through the windows. Once they were nailed shut, they began arriving in the most peculiar ways. Through milk cartons, through the eggs, and they would even appear by bags that would surround the house. By the end of the week, our uncle grew mad and began talking nonsense. It wasn't until Sunday that he seemed to be somewhat calm.

"Excellent," Uncle Vernon chuckled to himself. "Sunday is the best day of the week, wouldn't you agree, Harry?"

"If you say so," Harry muttered absentmindedly.

Vernon had been going on for hours saying how wonderful it was on that day. He couldn't be more pleased that the postman wouldn't be delivering that day, but Harry and I couldn't have been more miserable.

Through all of Uncle Vernon's attempts, we had always tried to grab a hold of them. The Dursleys, however, seemed determined that we wouldn't be able to read them. Even Dudley, who wanted to know more than ever what they said was prohibited to be close to the envelopes.

"What do they say?" I asked for the millionth time that week.

"Keep your mouth shut," Vernon snapped.

Knowing that I wouldn't get another word out of him about the message that we received, I simply sat down on the couch next to Harry. Not unlike myself, Harry look completely defeated and without any sign of hope. Never before in our lives had anyone tried to reach out to us like this mysterious person that was sending us these letters, and it only saddened us more that we would never know why they wanted to talk to us.

Aunt Petunia brought in a cup of tea for her husband and couldn't have looked more pleased that he wasn't losing his mind over what would come in the post that day. Our uncle happily sipped the tea that his wife gave to him and sighed in delight as he looked around at the silent room.

What happened next was so sudden and unimaginable that I nearly thought that it was a dream of mine. The ground underneath us seemed to rumble, but the source of it appeared to come from the fireplace that sat on the side of the room. Every one of us looked over at it in astonishment and it wasn't until Dudley came running into the sitting room that we discovered what it was that was causing this.

"What is going on?" Dudley shouted.

Then, all at once, an enormous stream of letters burst through the fireplace and into the room. It never seemed like it was going to end, and before we knew it, the entire room was filling with the letters. Our letters.

"Get one!" Harry said to me suddenly.

We both looked at each other and a smile spread across our faces. We jumped to the ground and I grabbed the first one that I could get my hands on. As soon as I did, I tried to make an escape and only realized that I was being followed when I heard Uncle Vernon's shouts of protest behind me.

"Don't you dare open those!" Uncle Vernon yelled loudly over the smashing of the letters against the walls.  
There was a great thud behind me, but I only stopped a moment to see what it was. With wide eyes, I watched as Harry was tackled to the ground by our uncle and the letter that was in his hand was wrestled from his grip. Harry put up a good fight, but he was no match for the mass that was Vernon Dursley.

"Rose, run!" Harry shouted.

Uncle Vernon's eyes darted to me instantly and he waddled to a stand as I took off toward the door. Unfortunately, I was tripped on the way out by Dudley who was instructed to stop me by his father. It was only seconds later that I felt the girth of my uncle fall upon me.

"It's my letter!" I shouted.

"Give me that right now!" Uncle Vernon shouted over the roar of the letters.

"Get off of her!" I heard Harry yell.

I wrestled around my uncle as Harry tackled him from the other side. We fought for a while until I realized that Dudley had taken Harry away from the fight to stop him from attacking his father. It was only a moment later that I lost hold of the letter in my hands.

"I've had enough!" my uncle shouted. "Everyone out of the house!"

Within an hour or two the five of us were packed into Uncle Vernon's car going to a place that none of us were sure of. To be honest, I was under the assumption that Uncle Vernon didn't actually plan out where we were going and was just trying to put as much distance between ourselves and the house.

No one dared speak the entire car ride in fear of Uncle Vernon losing his mind again. The only thing that I dared to do was look over at Harry and hope that we wouldn't be the ones that Uncle Vernon would take his anger out on.  
The car didn't stop until we arrived at a motel that I'd never seen before. None of us knew where we were, probably not even our uncle knew exactly where we were. The first one to speak up was Dudley once Uncle Vernon went out to buy something for us to eat.

"Mum, do you think that he's okay?" Dudley asked his mother in the motel room.

"I don't know," she said miserably. "I just think that needs to get away from the house for a while."

Aunt Petunia then went around the motel and tried to set up some of the things that Uncle Vernon had snatched from the house just before we left. It was then that Dudley turned to us with an angry expression.

"This is your fault, you know?" he said to Harry and me.

"How's that?" Harry asked. "We never asked to have someone write us."

"Yeah, but they still did," Dudley retorted. "Who would want to talk to you two freaks anyway?"

By the time that Uncle Vernon got back, all discussion of the letters stopped. We quickly ate the small amount of food that we were given before we were all sent to bed. Since the room only had two beds, Harry and I were told that we would have to lie on the floor so that Dudley would get his own bed while Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia would share the other one. We were given a few blankets and we tried to find the best spots in the place to sleep. Since we were so used to sleeping inside of a cramped closet, this wasn't anything that we weren't used to.

The next morning we were woken to the sound of knocking on our motel door. We all skeptically looked around at each other as Uncle Vernon scrambled out of bed and went to open the door. There, with a couple of large bags in his hands, was a motel worker with a curious look on his face.

"Are the Potters in here?" the man asked. "I've been asking around and no one seems to know who they are."  
"We're right here!" I called as I jumped out of my blankets.

"Well, hello, ma'am," he tipped his hat. "It appears that someone is trying to get in contact with you. Just this morning, all of these letters appeared at the front desk - '

"NO!" Uncle Vernon shouted as he pushed me away from the door.

"Sir, I hardly think that's appropriate!" the worker said. "I was just delivering - "

"Burn it," Uncle Vernon demanded. "Burn them all. That person trying to contact the two of them is dangerous."

"Well, I apologize," he said with a concerned look. "If I would have known that then I wouldn't have come."

"Don't make that mistake again," Uncle Vernon irritably said and then slammed the door in his face.

All the Dursleys had their eyes on us and I was suddenly angry that I hadn't moved fast enough to get one of those letters away from the man at the door.

"Get your things," Uncle Vernon said to everyone. "We're leaving right now."

Another day on the road wasn't something that anyone wanted to deal with. Harry and I sat in the back of the car feeling more depressed than we had in a while over what was going on. Whoever this person was that was trying to talk about us was determined to get in contact with us. I had no idea who they were or how they figured out where we were staying, but I had a feeling that it was going to be really hard to get out of their sight since they knew where we were at that motel.

Our final stop of the day, hours after Uncle Vernon stopped to pick up some food for the night, was a spot next to the sea. The wind was blowing hard and the rain was falling heavily when we stepped out of the vehicle.

"Vernon, what are we doing?" Aunt Petunia yelled to her husband over the sound of the rain.

"Just follow me!" he yelled.

I took Harry by the hand as we walked through the rain behind the Dursleys. When we got onto a dock on the sea, we found a small boat rocking through the violent sea that was attached to a pole next to me.

"Everyone get in!" Uncle Vernon ordered.

Harry helped me down into the boat after Dudley got in and then jumped in next to me. Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia got in afterwards and then we were off into the ocean. All of us were soaked and I was shivering heavily from the wind that was blowing against us and Harry scooted over close to me in attempt to get ourselves warmer.

"There's a house just up there!" Uncle Vernon pointed ahead. "That's where we're going to stay! There is no way that anyone is going to be able to find us there!"

Sure enough, not that far away from the shore, there was a shack sitting on top of a rock that didn't connect to any part of the main land. I wondered for a moment how Uncle Vernon knew about this place, but the condition around me made that thought fly out of my head.

It didn't take too long for us to get across the water to the island with the shack, but getting there didn't raise my spirits in the slightest. Walking into the apparently abandoned house that hardly seemed like it was capable of staying up through the storm made me scared that we wouldn't live through the night.

The place looked like it may have belonged to someone years ago, but wasn't appropriate for use now and hadn't been used for a long time. The door was filled with dirt and there were cobwebs everywhere in sight. The sight of it all made me a bit weary, but I didn't seem to be the only one. Aunt Petunia and Dudley didn't seem to be all that thrilled that this was going to be where we were staying for the night.

"Let's get a fire started," Uncle Vernon demanded as he slammed the door shut. "Boy, get to it!"

He threw over some matches to Harry and I gathered some of the wood that was stocked next to the fireplace. The rain seemed to slow significantly since we had been out there once the fire started, but the same couldn't be said for the wind. The howling seemed to surround the house and I jumped every time the thunder sounded from outside thinking that the house was going to collapse on us.

"It's going to be okay," Harry said as we warmed ourselves next to the fire.

"I don't like this place," I murmured.

"Stop complaining!" Uncle Vernon shouted when he heard me. "And eat your food!"

He tossed over a bag of chips to each of us and I opened it hesitantly after the fire seemed to have gotten rid of most of the water on my clothes and body. Once we were finished, we all tossed our trash into the fire to keep it burning for a while longer and then we were instructed to go to sleep. Since there was only one bed available, Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia took that one while Dudley took the only couch in the shack. That left Harry and me to grab some moldy blankets and try to find a decent place on the floor. However, we didn't have plans on going to sleep for a little while longer.

When the snores of the others sounded through the house and the Dursleys were all asleep, Harry spoke to me what we had both been thinking since the beginning of the day.

"It's our birthday tomorrow, you know?" Harry whispered.

"How could I have forgotten?" I whispered back.

"I made you a card, but it's back at Privet Drive," Harry frowned. "I guess when we go back there I'll give it to you."

"I left yours in our room too," I said.

It was a tradition every year that we would make our own cards for one another since we wouldn't get anything from anyone else. It was just something that we did for each other and it always made me feel better that someone cared about me.

"Look at Dudley's watch," Harry whispered. "It's only a minute until midnight!"

Even though I was tired and could have fallen asleep right at that moment, I decided that I would stay awake long enough to say happy birthday since we didn't have our cards. It was the least that we could do for each other.  
As the seconds came closer, both of us started a count down to the moment that we would turn eleven.

"Three...two...one..." we said together.

12:00

"Happy birthday!" we both smiled together.

BOOM!

Both of our heads shot up and looked at the door in surprise. We weren't experts, but there was no way that the noise could have come from the storm because it sounded as though a rock had just smashed into the door.

BOOM!

Harry and I jumped up from the ground and backed away from the door slowly. This time, we weren't the only ones that heard the noise and I noticed that Dudley had awoken from his slumber as well right as our aunt and uncle ran into the room. My eyes widened when I saw that Uncle Vernon had a gun in his hand.

"What's happening?" Dudley screamed over the roar of the wind from outside.

"I don't - " Uncle Vernon started.

BOOM - crunch!

The door in front of us collapsed onto the ground and Harry immediately pushed us both behind where the fireplace stuck out so that we wouldn't be seen by what or who was standing behind that door. I couldn't see the door, but I knew that it wasn't expected when I saw the look of shock and horror on everyone's faces.

"Who is it?" I whispered to Harry.

He shook his head and I knew that he was as oblivious to what was going on as I was. When I poked my head around the wooden fireplace, my mouth dropped when I saw the man that stood in front of us. He was the tallest and widest man that I had ever seen and he had a giant beard and mane that covered all of his face except for the two beady eyes that looked around at all of us. He wore a big coat that I suspected he had made himself and boots that looked like they belonged to an elephant.

"Sorry 'bout that..." the man muttered as he turned around and picked up the door with his enormous hands to shove it back where it had been before. "I did knock..."

When he looked around at all of our shocked expressions, he couldn't have looked more amused. However, when his beady eyes met Harry's and mine, he looked as though he had just found a gold mine.

"Harry and Rose Potter," he smiled as he took a step toward us. "I 'ave been looking fer you everywhere!"

Harry and I looked at each other, the confusion clear on both of our faces. We stepped closer to the man, no longer afraid of this enormous person, and I still had no idea who this man was.

"How do you know who we are?" I asked him.

"Knew yer parents o' course," he said. "Both of you look just like 'em! Harry, ya must be the spittin' image of yer father - except them eyes, those are Lily. Rose, I feel like I'm lookin' right at yer mother!"

The Dursleys, at this point, must have been stunned into silence by this giant of a man as he stepped over to us and place his enormous hands on our shoulders. He went to pat me on the back and ended up making me fall to the ground.

"Sorry 'bout that," he said awkwardly as he picked me up with one hand and helped me stand up again.

"I'm sorry, but who are you?" Harry asked finally.

"I'm Rubeus Hagrid, Keeper of the Keys and Grounds at Hogwarts," he said proudly.

"Hogwarts?" I asked him. "Where's that?"

"It's the greatest school of magic that exists!" Hagrid said. "You must know that!"

Harry and I looked at each other and I was happy that I wasn't alone in thinking that this man was completely mad. There had to be a mistake here.

"That is enough," Uncle Vernon finally spoke up and stepped over to Hagrid. "You need to get out of this house."

"What do you mean that it's a school of magic?" Harry asked.

Hagrid looked from the Dursleys to us with a look of horror. Had we said something to offend him? I couldn't imagine that it would be a good thing to make this man angry with us.

"Are you saying that they do not know, Dursley?" Hagrid asked with anger clear in his voice. "You didn't tell them?"

"Of course we didn't tell them!" Uncle Vernon said.

"Didn't tell us what?" Harry and I demanded together.

"We vowed that when we took them in that they would never know," Aunt Petunia said. "I wouldn't let that madness enter my home again. Just look at my sister, she was a freak and then she went and got herself blown up!"

"What?" I said in disbelief.

"What do you mean blown up?" Harry demanded.

"It doesn't matter!" Uncle Vernon shouted. "There isn't anything that you can do to change this - we are going to stamp this madness out of them!"

"What are you talking about?" I insisted.

"Yer wizards!" Hagrid shouted at once.

Everyone in the room went silent and I was staring at the man in complete disbelief. What was he talking about? There couldn't be such thing as wizards and witches in real life, those were only in books!

"Yer parents were as well," Hagrid explained. "But they were murdered when you two were just babies by the darkest wizard of the time - that's why you ended up with yer Muggle uncle and aunt!"

"Muggle?" I asked.

"Non-magical folk," Hagrid said.

"Our parents were murdered?" Harry asked. "Aunt Petunia said that they died in a car crash!"

"It doesn't make any difference how they were killed!" Uncle Vernon shouted. "I know what you're here for and I can tell you this: they are not going to that bloody school to be taught by some crack-pot, old fool!"

When he said it, I knew that it was going to turn out badly. Hagrid's eyes narrowed and his eyebrows furrowed as he stepped closer to my uncle that now looked like he was ready to run away in fear.

"Don't-ever-insult-Albus-Dumbledore-in-front-of-me ," Hagrid said in a deep tone.

From out of Hagrid's enormous jacket, he pulled out a small, pink umbrella that I thought he was going to hit Uncle Vernon in the head with. However, much to my surprise, the man pointed the end of it right at a shocked Dudley and sparks flew out of the end of it.

The Dursleys screamed as a small, pink tail sprouted from the butt of our cousin. As they all ran out of the room in a panic, Harry and I found ourselves laughing as Dudley did everything he could to hide his tail from view. When they slammed the door to the only bedroom in the shack, Hagrid looked down to us.

"Could ya not mention that ter anyone?" he asked.

"Not a problem," Harry smiled.

Then Hagrid reached back into one of the many pockets of his jacket and pulled out two letters that we had become so familiar with. He handed each of us the one with our name on it and gave us a smile.

"I think that yer going to want ter read them letters," Hagrid said. "I think you've waited long enough."

An excitement went through both of us as we ripped open the letters and we read through what the note said:

 _Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry_

 _Headmaster: Albus Dumbledore (Order of Merlin, First Class, Grand Sorc., Chf. Warlock, Supreme Mugwump, International Confed. of Wizards)_

 _Dear Rose Potter,_

 _We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Please find enclosed a list of all necessary books and equipment. Term begins on September 1. We await your owl by no later than July 31._

 _Yours sincerely,  
Minerva McGonagall  
Deputy Headmistress_.

 _Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry  
Headmaster: Albus Dumbledore (Order of Merlin, First Class, Grand Sorc., Chf. Warlock, Supreme Mugwump, International Confed. of Wizards)_

 _Dear Rose Potter,  
We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted at HogwartsSchool of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Please find enclosed a list of all necessary books and equipment. Term begins on September 1. We await your owl by no later than July 31._

 _Yours sincerely,  
Minerva McGonagall  
Deputy Headmistress._


	3. Chapter 3

The Dursleys did not come out of their room for the remainder of the night or the morning after. Much to their dismay the man called Hagrid slept through the night on the couch that Dudley had been sleeping on before his arrival.

Considering his size, I was very surprised that the old piece of furniture could hold him up, but it managed to do its job in holding him up that night.

When I woke up the following morning, I was fairly surprised that what happened the night before wasn't a dream. It took me a moment to remember what happened, and I still could hardly believe what was going on. When Hagrid saw me looking up at him from my spot on the ground, he gave me a big smile.

"Would ya like some breakfast?" he asked me.

"I would, but I don't think we have any more food," I told him.

"Not a problem," he said as he pulled something out of one of the various pockets in his jackets.

After pulling out several small trinkets that I had trouble believing would fit into his pockets, he pulled out several small sausages that were wrapped in aluminum foil and stood up so he could walk toward the fireplace. He took his pink umbrella from his side, looked at me and then back at the fire, before inaudibly saying a word that caused fire to come out of the end of the umbrella and start a fire in the fireplace in front of him. Seeing my jaw drop, Hagrid smiled.

"Don't tell anyone about me using magic around here, would ya?" Hagrid said sheepishly.

"Uh...not a problem," I said.

Harry woke up just in time for the sausages to be cooked up and ready to eat. All three of us sat around the fire and happily ate a warm meal in the cold shack. Once we were done, Hagrid looked down at us and sighed.

"What's wrong?" I asked.

"Well, I suppose that ya ought ter know the truth about yer parents," Hagrid said.

"What do you mean?" Harry asked.

"Ya said last night that the Dursleys told ya that yer parents died in a car crash," Hagrid said. "But it's not true. A simple car crash couldn't kill yer parents. They were great wizards, James and Lily."

Harry and I looked at each other, but remained speechless. We gathered last night that there was a lot that the Dursleys did not tell us throughout our lives, but we could not have prepared ourselves for what really happened to our parents all those years ago. Since as far was we could remember, our aunt and uncle told the same story: they died in a car crash. They never spoke any more about it than that, and now that we figured out that they hid our magic from us, it was not that hard to believe that they lied to us about our parents as well.

"Yer parents didn't just die," Hagrid said. "They were murdered."

Our eyes grew wide and Harry's jaw dropped.

"Murdered?" I asked in horror. "By who?"

"They were killed by a great, dark wizard," Hagrid said uncomfortably. "His name...isn't really something that people like to say."

"What was it?" I asked.

"Er..." Hagrid said, his face showing obvious signs of discomfort as he searched for the courage to say it aloud.

"Would you rather write it down?" Harry suggested.

"No," he shook his head. "It...er...Voldemort - don't make me say it again. Just call him You-Know-Who."

We both nodded, but I know that I did not fully understand why saying this man's name upset Hagrid the way that it did. He was clearly an evil man, but I couldn't imagine why just saying his name made him so uncomfortable.

"He was the one who killed our parents?" my brother asked.

"Yes," Hagrid said. "And many others. He came ter yer parents house that night and killed them before turning on the two of ya. But fer some reason, somethin' went wrong."

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"He tried ter kill you," Hagrid said. "But it didn't work. Somethin' happened that night with the two of ya that made it so the spell rebounded and hit him instead."

"W-what?" Harry asked. "So he's dead?"

"No one knows what really happened that night," Hagrid said. "Some say that he's dead, but I'm not so sure about it. He hasn't shown up anywhere since then, but I 'ave my suspicions. Either way, he left the two of ya without parents and with those scars all over ya."

After he said that, there was silence. I had so many questions to ask, but I didn't even know where to start. Why was Voldemort after us in the first place? It didn't make much sense that we were the ones that took him down if he was so powerful. What could we have done that made it so the spell that killed our parents went back on him instead? It was too much to take in at once.

Just when Harry went to say something, we all turned when we heard movement coming from the Dursleys' room. They were awake again, and after all that I discovered they kept from us all these years, I didn't want to see them again any time soon.

"Do you two want ter get out of here fer a bit?" Hagrid asked us with a smile.

"Where would we go?" Harry asked.

"Well, it seems that ya both need some supplies for school if ya wants some help with yer shopping," Hagrid suggested.

"That would be great," I said, but was a little discouraged. "But we don't have any money to pay for anything. Besides, where would you even get the stuff on this list - I've never seen any of it in a shop."

"We're gonna 'ave ter go ta London," Hagrid said. "I know just where ter take ya. And don't ya worry about money ter pay fer it - yer parents left ya plenty behind fer ya both."

Harry and I didn't need much more of an argument to get away from the Dursleys who were undoubtedly hiding away in the small room in the shack for Hagrid to leave them. We got in a small boat outside of the shack and took off at a magical speed that Hagrid suggested we not discuss with anyone else. For the time being, we were just thankful that we could have a moment away from our only family members as we went on into the unknown. Though seeing the look of horror on their faces one more time would have been amusing.

When we got to London, Hagrid took us to an unfamiliar place called The Leaky Cauldron. When we stepped in, there were various strange looking people sitting around the tables with clothes that I knew my uncle would be angry to see. We were only in there for a moment when the entire place went quiet when the door closed behind us. We stared back at everyone for a moment and I began to feel uncomfortable with the looks of fascination went across the faces of our onlookers. Once I looked down in attempt to ignore the sudden attention we were getting, frantic whispers began to go across the room.

"Let's get a move on," Hagrid said as he pushed us forward.

Getting through the Leaky Cauldron was not as easy as Hagrid would have expected. What he failed to tell us last night and this morning was that we were really well known throughout the wizarding community. Despite never meeting or seeing any of these people, just about every person knew us by name and rushed over to meet us as we were walking by.

"Harry and Rose Potter," a man in a large red cloak gasped as he took our hands to shake them. "I'm so honored to meet you both. Look at them, Jeb, it's the Potter twins!"

We smiled nervously as we passed by several other people who had the same greetings, and we did what we could to stay polite even though we were so uncomfortable with the amount of attention we were getting.  
Just as we began to move toward the back of the building, we were stopped by a very strange, pale looking man in a turban who had a large, nervous smile on his face. While he seemed pleased to see us, something about the man made me feel very uneasy.

"H-Harry Potter," he stammered. "R-R-Rose Potter. It's s-s-s-so nice to meet you b-both."

Used to shaking so many people's hands in the building, we both held our hands out to shake his, but were surprised to see him back up with a look that said he didn't want to shake our hands at all. Instead, he just gave us another smile.

"Er...nice to meet you," Harry said.

"This is Professor Quirrell," Hagrid said. "He's going to be one of your teachers at Hogwarts."

"Oh, really?" I asked with fascination. "What are you going to teach us?"

"D-Defense Against the Dark A-Arts," Professor Quirrell told us.

It hadn't occurred to me until then that this school would not have ordinary classes. I figured that there would be classes teaching us about magic, but I didn't realize until then that I would never have to take another maths class again, much to my enjoyment.

"I l-look forward to seeing y-y-you both at H-Hogwarts," our professor said.

"Well, we better be off," Hagrid said politely. "Lots of shoppin' ter do."

Professor Quirrell nodded and Hagrid began to push us in the direction we were heading before we got stopped. Once we reached the back door, Hagrid pushed it open to reveal a giant brick wall in the back. When he closed the door behind us, we were left staring at it with seemingly nowhere else to go.

"Don't worry about Professor Quirrell," Hagrid said. "He gets nervous easily."

"No worries," I said. "Hagrid, why are we out here?"

"This is the way there," he said.

After he said that, he stepped forward with his umbrella in hand and began poking and prodding at the wall for a few moments. Harry and I looked at each other with a raised eyebrow in confusion as we stared at the large man doing another strange thing. That's when the wall began to rumble.

Both Harry and I stepped backwards as the wall in front of us began to break apart slowly as each brick began to turn on its spot and move around. This happened for a few moments before the wall turned into a brick archway that led to a busy looking street filled with people in strange robes like the ones in the Leaky Cauldron.

"Welcome to Diagon Alley," Hagrid said with a smile as he looked at our bewildered faces.

With Hagrid's encouragement, we walked forward and onto the strange street that just appeared. When I looked around the corner, my eyes couldn't seem to focus on one thing at once. There were so many things to see and I didn't even know where to look first. People were wearing loud colored robes and clutching onto large books, cauldrons, and animal cages as they excitedly moved through the shops on the street. Owls flew overhead holding onto small pieces of paper while small children chased after them and failed to catch up. Broomsticks could be seen all around in cases as children of all ages hustled around them and looked at them with the same fascination that we did.

As we passed by each shop, my desire to go through everything grew, but Hagrid insisted that we had to go by some place called Gringotts first so that we could get the money that we needed to pay for our school supplies. As we made our way to this wizard bank, time ceased to exist as I took in every inch of Diagon Alley with an amazement that I had never felt in my life. I wanted to see everything.

"Here we are," Hagrid said as he pointed ahead. "There's Gringotts."

"Can't we just look around, Hagrid?" I asked as my eyes stuck to everything around.

"We'll get ter that," Hagrid laughed. "Don't be impatient. We just need ter get some money first so ya can get yer stuff."  
When we stepped into Gringotts, my fascination with this street did not stop. The bank was no ordinary bank, as I was expecting, but filled with small creatures in fancy gowns that eyed money at their desks and muttered inaudible words to one another. One of them caught me staring at him too long and gave me a nasty look that made me look back to Hagrid.

"They're goblins," Hagrid explained as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. "They're the best ones ter run the bank - ya'd be crazy ter try 'n rob 'em."

"Goblins?" Harry whispered to me.

"I thought those were just storybook characters," I whispered back.

Before we knew it, we were standing at a desk in front of a goblin who asked us what we wanted. Apparently his name was Griphook and he was going to be helping us get our parents' money.

"I'm here ter get to the Potters' vault," Hagrid announced to the goblin named Griphook. "I also have a letter here from Dumbledore about that...er...thing...in vault 713..."

Harry and I gave each other a look, but didn't say anything as the goblin and Hagrid exchanged the letter without any other word about it. Once Hagrid dug the key to our vault out of his pocket and handed it to Griphook, the goblin hopped down from his seat at the desk and led us toward a cart that sat on rails. He instructed us to get inside of it, but I thought it would be too small to fit all of us and Hagrid, but it didn't make any difference to Griphook who impatiently waited for us to all get in.

"Sorry," Hagrid said as he squeezed into the cart and made every one of us uncomfortable with the lack of room we had in the cart.

"Hold on," Griphook said.

I didn't understand what he meant until the cart suddenly jerked forward and we plunged into the great abyss. I screamed as we suddenly dropped down and made two hard turns and came to a sudden stop. Mortified, I looked around and saw that we stopped in front of a large vault with the number 713 in the middle of it. Griphook hopped out of the cart, obviously unaffected by the cart ride that took me so much by surprise, and hobbled over to the vault.

"What are we doing here?" I asked Hagrid.

"It's Hogwarts business," Hagrid said sounding official. "Secret business for Dumbledore."

"Dumbledore?" Harry asked.

"The Headmaster of Hogwarts," Hagrid said, almost sounding offended that we didn't remember his name. "Great man and a great wizard. You'll meet him once you head off to school."

Griphook opened up the vault with a wave of his small hand, and he pulled the one small package from the large, and now empty, vault. After handing it over to Hagrid with the greatest care, he hopped back into the cart. For a brief moment, there was silence. Then the cart lurched forward again, but I was more prepared for it this time. I held onto the sides of the cart for dear life and found that the force of the speed sent me crushing back into Hagrid. We were too tightly packed into the cart that I was now certain we couldn't fall out. Just when I thought that I was going to be sick, we came to another sudden stop in front of another vault that I assumed belonged to our parents.

"Come now," Griphook demanded.

Harry and I got out of the cart with ease and were followed by Hagrid who took a moment longer to get his large body out of the cart that clearly was not made for a person of his size to easily use. We followed behind Griphook who used a key to turn into the door in front of us to unlock the door to the money that our parents left behind for us. When it opened, my jaw dropped when I saw a large pile of gold in front of us.

...

When we got back out into the street with our money and school list in hand, Harry and I practically ran into the shops so we could get a look at everything as quickly as possible.

"Where can we go first?" I asked excitedly.

"Well," Hagrid said as he looked at the list and around at the shops. "I suppose we could go in here and get yer robes for glass."

"Our robes?" I asked. "Do we have to wear uniforms?"

"Ya do," Hagrid said. "And no one makes 'em better than Madam Malkins!"

We stepped toward Madam Malkins's robe shop, but Hagrid left us to do this part alone as he went to go calm his stomach after the sickening cart ride in Gringotts. While Harry went in to check when we could get our robes measured, I went along into a nearby shop called Flourish and Blotts that held several bookcases on topics that I had never heard of. The entirety of the store was packed with young people searching for their school books, and I felt that I should probably do the same while I waited for Harry to get back to me. I pulled out my list of books and read through them when someone ran directly into me and nearly knocked me over. She grabbed my arm and I looked up to see a girl with the largest hair I'd ever seen who dropped a few books on the floor.

"I'm so sorry," the girl said as she bent over to pick up the books she dropped on the floor.

"It's fine," I said back. "I wasn't paying attention."

"Are you a first year too?" she asked excitedly as she got a good look at me.

"What?" I asked as I picked up one of her books from the floor.

"You're just starting off at Hogwarts?" she rephrased.

"Oh, right, yeah," I responded.

The girl stood up straight and stuck her hand out for me to shake it with a large, toothy grin.

"I'm Hermione Granger," she stated. "It's nice to meet you."

"Oh, I'm Rose," I smiled as she aggressively shook my hand. "Nice to meet you too."

"So what house do you think you'll get sorted into?" Hermione asked.

"House?" I asked.

She started to answer my question when two confused looking adults walked up behind her. Looking relieved to have found her, I assumed that these were Hermione's parents who were accompanying her for her shopping in Diagon Alley.

"Hermione, there you are," the father said. "We got lost."

"Are you making friends?" the mother beamed as she looked at me.

"This is Rose, she's new to Hogwarts too," Hermione said as she pointed toward me. "Rose, these are my parents."

"Oh, then perhaps you could help us figure out where to get the wands," the father said. "We're having a little trouble with the map."

They all looked at me expectantly like I knew all of the answers, but I was at a complete loss. To be honest, they were more likely to know the answer than I would at this point.

"Er...I'm not really sure," I said. "I've never been here before."

"Are your parents with you?" the mother asked. "Perhaps they might know the area a little better."

"I'm not here with my parents," I admitted. "I didn't even know about this place until today."

"Oh!" Hermione said with delight. "She must be like us - are your parents non-magical too?"

"No, they were," I replied, "but I never knew them. I was raised by Muggles though."

Hermione and her parents' faces went red when they realized that they were being too pressing with questions about my parents who they now knew were dead. They apologized frantically, and I assured them that it was nothing to worry about. Afterwards, Hermione and her parents helped me find my books in the shop and I paid for both mine and Harry's and parted ways with her family.

"I'll see you at Hogwarts!" Hermione waved as she walked away.

I waved back and walked back toward the robe shop where I found Harry finishing up with his robe fitting just in time for me to start mine. Once we were done, we walked along Diagon Alley looking for Hagrid.

"Some girl I met in the book shop asked me what house I think I'll get in when we get to Hogwarts," I told Harry. "What do you think she means?"

"No idea," Harry shrugged his shoulders. "Some boy I talked to asked me if I was interested in something called Quidditch..."

"I guess there's a lot more that Hagrid hasn't told us about yet," I said.

Just as spoke, we saw Hagrid walking out of a shop called Eelops Owl Emporium with two cages in his hands that had an owl in each of them. In his left hand, there was snowy-white owl with black spots while the other one was black with small streaks of white going throughout. When he caught our eyes, he gave us a big smile and moved toward us.

"Happy birthday!" he said as he pushed the owls toward us. "Just thought I'd get ya both an owl for yer birthday - they're real great."

The white owl was given to Harry and the black one was given to me, and we were both at a loss for words. The Dursleys never gave us anything decent for our birthday all our lives, and this was the first gift that we got from someone that actually meant something to us.

"They're beautiful," I said. "Thank you, Hagrid."

"Just make sure ya use 'em to send me some letters every now and then," Hagrid shrugged. "Now let's get the rest of the stuff of yer list."

We spent the next couple of hours walking through the different shops, even the ones we didn't need to, so we could get the full experience of Diagon Alley with the other Hogwarts students that ran in and out of the shops getting their own supplies. The last thing that we got on our list had to be the thing that I was most looking forward to: the wand. To get these wands, we went to Ollivander's Wand Shop which was surprisingly without any customers at the moment. When we stepped through the doors, a bell rang and an old man came out from behind a stack of boxes with a smile of greeting on his face. He looked at us for a moment before saying anything.

"Well, hello, Harry and Rose Potter," he said.

Harry and I looked at each other and back at him. Something about the way he recognized us was different than the greetings we'd been given the day so far. It's almost as if he expected to see us or was waiting for us for some time.  
"I suppose the time has come around for the two of you to get your wands, hasn't it?" Ollivander said. "Doesn't seem like it's been that long since your parents came through here to get their wands, but I suppose it's about that time now. Let's see what I can do for the two of you..."

Ollivander disappeared behind one of the many stacks of boxes behind his desk. For a moment, he passed completely out of sight until he reappeared with two boxes that he handed to us both. We opened them up, took them in our hands and then just looked at him.

"Is that it?" I asked.

"Well, give it a wave," Ollivander suggested.

I shrugged my shoulders and waved it in the air, but nearly threw it when something shot out of the end of it that flew into a nearby light bulb and shattered it.

"I'm sorry!" I said. "I didn't know -"

"Not the first time that's happened, dear," Ollivander chuckled. "Mr. Potter, care to give yours a try."

Harry hesitantly waved his wand in the air and several boxes behind Ollivander flew across the room and Ollivander had to duck to avoid getting hit in the head.

"Seems not," he said and took both of wands back.

He placed the wands we just used into another stack and disappeared into the piles of wands behind his desk again. We tried two different wands each before Ollivander came forward with two separate wands and a curious look in his eyes as he looked from the wands to us. He set them down on the desk with care and seemed as though he had a lot going on in his mind.

"Let's see about these..." he murmured.

We both took the wands and waved them in the air at the same time. Rather than having something explode or go flying in the air, sparks pleasantly flew from each one of them and surprised us all.

"Curious...very curious indeed..." Ollivander murmured to himself as he stared at us.

"What is it?" I asked.

Ollivander hesitated for a moment and said,

"It's very curious that these are the wands that chose you, because they both share the same core as another owner," he said. "Each of your wands has a Phoenix feather core, and this particular Phoenix only have three feathers away. Two are in the wands that you're holding now, but the other one...the other one belongs to the man who gave you those scar."


	4. Chapter 4

Going back to Privet Drive after our visit to Diagon Alley was strange in a way that my brother and I never expected. It almost seemed easier to be around the Dursleys now that the secret was out. Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon hardly spoke to us, and Dudley never gave us a problem in the next month we spent with them. While this should have come as a relief, I felt like it was too decent to last and it became almost awkward to walk around the house when the Dursleys kept giving us sideways glances.

For the most part, Harry and I stayed in our rooms to avoid the strange looks that our aunt and uncle kept giving us. It was as if they expected Hagrid to come bursting back to the door at any minute. For the time being, we took care of our owls and looked through the books we got from Diagon Alley. During this time, we named our owls. Harry called his Hedwig and I named mine Icarus after the Greek god. While we both wanted to let our owls fly free, the Dursleys were very clear on not wanting them outside of their cages, and we felt it best that we stick to that rule for the limited time we  
would be spending on Privet Drive.

When September came around, we quickly discovered that we weren't really that sure how we were going to get to the train station that led to Hogwarts. Before we parted ways with Hagrid, he gave us a ticket to Kings Cross Station that we were meant to board on September 1st, but it was not until we got back to the Dursley's house that we realized that it was labeled for Platform 9 ¾. When the day finally came around for us to be driven to the station by Uncle Vernon, we finally got the courage to ask him about it.

"Uncle Vernon?" I said.

"What?" he grunted.

"Do you know where Platform 9 ¾ is in the station?" I asked.

As soon as I asked, I instantly regretted it. His face went completely red and he looked like he was doing everything he could to stop himself from screaming at me.

"Do you take me for a fool?" he asked.

"No, it's just that the train to Hogwarts -" I started.

"Enough!" he demanded. "I don't want to hear another word out of either of you."

We didn't bother asking any more questions. Uncle Vernon clearly couldn't help us with finding out where our train would be, and we were just going to have to figure it out for ourselves. It was clearly stressful enough for him to be taking us to the station alone because it forced him to recognize that his niece and nephew were to follow the same path as their parents - something that was unthinkable up until now between his wife and him.

When our uncle dropped us off and we got our things out of his car, he muttered a simple goodbye and took off without helping us into the station at all. Looking hopeless, we both decided to make our way with some carts we were given for our luggage toward Platform 9 and 10 with the hopes of finding out what we were supposed to do. When we got there, there was no sign for this Platform 9 ¾ we were supposed to be boarding.

"Do you think we should ask?" Harry suggested.

"I'm not sure," I said with uncertainty as I looked at one of the employees of the station. "Do you think they'll know what we're talking about? Just look how Uncle Vernon responded."

We looked up at the clock that was set up in the station and realized that we had very limited time to figure out how to get to our station. For the time being, we decided to continue looking around the station until we gave up and asked one of the employees, and he responded in the same way that Uncle Vernon did.

"I don't have time for jokes, kid," the man said to Harry when he asked.

With only ten minutes left before our train was supposed to take off, we parked our carts in between Platform 9 and 10 hopelessly.

"What are we going to do now?" I asked.

"I don't know," Harry sighed. "If the train leaves without us, we're going to have to call Uncle Vernon..."

Just as he said that, a bigger group of redheads walked through the station pushing along carts. In the mix of the other people swarming the station, this group stood out to me the most because the woman, who I gathered was the mother of this group of children, was rushing her children along and said something loud enough to catch my attention.

"Hurry up, we're going to be late for the train to school," she urged them. "Fred and George, would you please keep up! Platform 9 ¾ is just ahead Ronny, dear!"

"Harry!" I said pulling on his shirt. "Come on - we need to follow them!"

"What?" he said, clearly not hearing what they had said.

"Hurry!" I said as I took my cart and hurried toward them with Harry quickly trailing behind me.

We approached them just as they stopped in front of a pillar in between Platform 9 and 10 with their carts in front of them and without the look of confusion that was on our faces.

"Excuse me, ma'am?" I said trying to get her attention.

She looked around at all of her children for a moment in an attempt to figure out which one of them said something to her before she figured out that it was someone else. When she met my eye, she gave me a welcoming smile.

"Oh, hello!" she said with a laugh. "Could have mistaken you for one of my own with that hair. Can I help you with something?"

"It's just that I heard you say you were going to Platform 9 ¾," I told her. "My brother and I have been trying to figure out where it is."

"Oh, yes!" she said. "Going to Hogwarts are you?"

"Yes, ma'am," Harry said as he stepped over next to me.

Just as Harry stepped next to me, I noticed a look from the woman's children that was becoming oddly familiar in recent days. In total, I counted four boys and one little girl, all with bright red hair and freckles all over their faces. Their parents, both redheads themselves, were leading all their boys to Hogwarts, but the youngest girl in the group seemed to be the only child who was not pushing a cart filled with suitcases and books.

"Wonderful!" she said. "I suppose it's both of your first years as well? My youngest boy Ron is just starting at Hogwarts too."

The younger looking boy's face went a little pink as we both looked at him and he gave a small wave before looking back at his mother.

"Okay, Molly," the man, who must have been her husband, said. "I think we better get a move on or we'll be late."

"Of course," she said. "The entrance is just through this pillar here - just watch the boys do it."

As she said this, the oldest redheaded boy stepped forward with his cart. Without much delay, he quickly pushed his cart forward and disappeared into the pillar without a trace. Both Harry and I were speechless.

"Don't think too much about it," the woman said. "Okay, Fred, George - get to it."

Two identical twin boys stepped forward and rushed forward, one behind the other, and disappeared into the wall. After that, the woman insisted that we go next so we wouldn't be the last ones to go. Feeling brave, I stepped up to go in front of my brother.

"Best to get a running start," the younger redheaded boy suggested.

Taking his advice, I looked at the wall and began running toward it with my cart in front of me. As I got nearer to the pillar, I closed my eyes and braced myself to crash into a brick wall, but I instead found myself continuing to race forward. When I opened my eyes, I was amazed to see an entirely different scene ahead of me.

Rather than seeing the bustling, ordinary train station, I instead found myself standing directly next to a large train that read The Hogwarts Express. Surrounding us now were students saying goodbye to their parents and gathering their luggage to board the train. Once I was able to get the full view of what was happening, I noticed that Harry was standing next to me with the same look of amazement on his face.

"We made it," he said quietly.

After thanking the woman, who we learned was Mrs. Weasley, Harry and I boarded the train to Hogwarts with our luggage in hand. We were certainly one of the later people to find our seats because there were virtually no vacancies in the compartments throughout the train. However, we ended up finding one empty compartment toward the back of the train that Harry and I took for our own.

Not long after we took our seats, we found a familiar face outside of our compartment. The youngest Weasley boy was looking in at us with a hopeful glance.

"Hello," he said. "I was wondering if I could sit with you both...all the other compartments are full."

"That's fine," Harry said.

"My name is Ron, by the way," he introduced himself as he took a seat next to Harry. "Ron Weasley."

"Nice to meet you," I said. "I'm Rose."

"And I'm her brother Harry," Harry said.

When Ron's mouth dropped, we both realized that we didn't need to say our last names for him to recognize who we were. Ron looked from both Harry to me in complete bewilderment.

"You're the Potter twins," Ron said with his face going a little red. "I heard that you two were coming this year, but I had no idea."

"I suppose we're the ones," Harry said.

"So do you really have...er...the scars?" he asked as his eyes scanned our heads.

Both Harry and I pushed aside the hair that covered our scars and Ron's face lightened up when he saw them. This reaction wasn't what I was used to in school. Most people were disgusted with them and said that they made us look stranger than we already looked. But this was probably because Dudley always told people that.

"That's so neat," Ron said.

Ron talked with both of us for a while as the train began to move forward. We learned a lot about his family and some new things about Hogwarts - including what Houses and Quidditch were. Ron had known about all of this stuff his entire life because he was raised in a house full of witches and wizards and his older brothers had all been there before him.  
We also got the chance to try some strange kinds of candies and chocolates that a lady pushing along a trolley was selling throughout the train. Harry and I had never heard of Cauldron Cakes, Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans (which really meant every flavor), or Chocolate Frogs before and we took the chance to try every piece of candy we could.  
Just as we were reading a card we got from the Chocolate Frog container, which was one about Albus Dumbledore, our new headmaster, we heard a tapping on the compartment door that we went ahead and opened up to see who it was.

To my surprise, I saw a familiar face - the girl from Flourish and Blotts with the large hair whose name was Hermione.

"I'm sorry to bother you, but a boy named Neville lost his toad," Hermione said and then caught my eye. "Oh, hello! I remember you from the shop - Rose, wasn't it?"

"That's right," I said with a smile. "And this is my brother Harry - "

"Wait a moment," she said with wide eyes. "Harry and Rose - as in the Potter children? The ones who defeated You-Know-Who? I've read all about the two of you. My name is Hermione Granger - it's great to meet you two."  
Embarrassed, Harry and I didn't know what to say. Being the only one who hadn't spoken up since her entrance into our compartment, Ron decided that he would be the one to break the tension.

"I'm Ron Weasley," he said as he bit into a Cauldron Cake that fell all over his lap.

"How charming," she said with a look of disgust. "Anyway, I'm going to keep looking for that toad. Would any of you care to join me?"

She looked at us all expectantly as she raised her eyebrow. Harry and Ron clearly had no interest in leaving all their candy behind for any reason at all. Feeling awkward and wanting an opportunity to walk around a bit, I decided to volunteer.

"I could help," I said as I stood up.

"Excellent," she said.

We exited the compartment without another word to the boys and walked forward.

"So what does this toad we're looking for look like?" I asked.

"It's sort of a brownish color, I believe," she explained. "Oh, here's Neville now."

In front of Hermione was a short, plump boy with dirty blonde hair and a panicked expression. He had just closed a compartment door when he saw us walking toward him.

"Have you found him?" he asked desperately.

"No luck," Hermione sighed. "But we have some extra help - Neville, this is Rose Potter."

In a manner completely lacking subtlety, Neville looked at me and his eyes immediately darted to my forehead. Seeing that this was yet another reaction I was getting from a stranger on this train, I decided that I was going to have to get used to this and just move along.

"T-thank you," he stammered.

I nodded and we then began to move forward to other compartments to ask if anyone had seen it. I wasn't having much luck when I ended up in front of a compartment filled with laughing people about my age. Everyone seemed to be listening to one boy who had blonde hair that was nearly white in appearance and a presence that clearly demanded attention.

"Excuse me, have you all seen a toad?" I asked.

"A toad?" the blonde boy scoffed. "Why would we have a toad in this compartment? Don't tell me someone brought a bloody toad to Hogwarts as a pet."

"I'm sorry, am I missing something?" I asked.

"Only complete losers bring toads to Hogwarts," the boy said. "And my father only buys the best for me."

"Wow, okay," I scoffed. "I didn't realize I was asking a spoilt brat."

"What did you just call me?" the boy asked, showing that I clearly struck a nerve.

"You heard what I said," I told him.

Neville walked up behind me then and realized that something was going on. I didn't know who this kid was, but I didn't get a good feeling from him already. He clearly thought he was better than anyone on this train, and I didn't want to hear any more from him.

"Oh, that explains it all," the boy laughed. "The toad must belong to Longbottom."

The compartment began to laugh along with the blonde-haired boy, and I looked over at Neville whose face was red as he looked at the ground.

"Shove off," I said as I pushed the boy backwards, instantly stopping all the laughter.

"Don't you dare touch me!" he snarled. "My father will hear about this."

"I'm shaking," I muttered as I slammed the door to his compartment and walked off.

"Thanks..." Neville whispered to me when we stopped.

"Don't worry about it," I said. "That boy was awful."

We eventually gave up our search to find the toad and I made my way back to the compartment with Ron and Harry who had nearly eaten all of the chocolate and candy we bought earlier. Before too long, the train finally came to a stop and I could hardly contain my excitement about going into Hogwarts.

When we got off the train, we were greeted by a familiar face who was calling for first years to make their way over toward him.

"Hagrid!" Harry said.

"Glad to see you two made it," Hagrid said. "Hope you didn't have any trouble."

After the first years got together, Hagrid made the announcement that the first years were going to make their way over to Hogwarts by boat. We all excitedly broke up into groups and got into our boats without much of a problem. Then, all at once, the boats began to move without anyone paddling.

Just as I began to settle with my amazement at the boats moving by themselves, I nearly leapt from my seat when my hand touched something slimy. Looking down, I saw a large, brown toad that was perched just on the side of my boat. Looking around, I noticed that Neville was on a boat just a few feet away from me.

"Hey, Neville!" I called over to him. "Is this your toad?"

I lifted the brown, slimy creature up so that he could see it and his face lit up.

"Trevor!" he said excitedly.

"I'll hand him over once we stop," I told him.

Right after he nodded, I was given a nudge by Harry who pointed ahead. When I looked where he was pointing, I saw it. Hogwarts. The castle was enormous and more beautiful than I could have ever imagined. It looked like something that belonged in a storybook and I couldn't believe that I was here.

"Welcome to Hogwarts," Hagrid announced.


	5. Chapter 5

Once we got to the end lake, we all began to unload onto the shore not far from the castle. I happily handed over the toad to Neville as we began to walk toward the castle. When we finally approached the castle after leaving the boathouse, we were told to wait in the corridors that led into what was called The Great Hall and await further instruction. Finishing his job by leading us into the castle, Hagrid joined the rest of the staff and students in the Great Hall without us. There was chattering amongst the first years for a moment before a boy spoke up for us all to hear.

"I heard that Harry and Rose Potter are here," the boy said.

Everyone went quiet and looked over to the person who spoke, and I saw the blonde boy that I spoke to earlier about Neville's lost toad. When I looked over at Harry, he had an apprehensive look on his face when he saw who was speaking.

"That was the boy I spoke to in the robe shop," Harry whispered to me.

Once everyone saw who was talking, the chattering started up again, but it seemed that everyone had the same topic in mind now. They wanted to know where we were.

"Is that true?" one girl asked.

"The Potters are here?" someone else asked.

"Where are they?" the blonde-haired boy asked. "I'd like to meet them."

"I think this is them," a boy next to me said. "Right over here - am I right?"

In that moment, I felt like crawling into a hole. I didn't want this kind of attention all at once and, from the looks of it, neither did Harry. The entire class of first years gawked at us as if we were something to look at in the zoo, and I had never felt more awkward in my life - which was saying something.

"Er...hello," I waved and felt my face getting hotter.

"You're Rose Potter?" the blonde-haired boy said in disbelief. "I guess I misjudged you on the train. My name is Draco Malfoy. And you must be Harry?"

He held out his hand in between Harry and me. Harry just looked at him for a minute, so instead I quickly shook his hand so we wouldn't all just be standing there looking at one another.

"I'm going to give you both some advice," Draco said after shaking my hand. "I think you're hanging around the wrong crowd. I can help you with that."

"The wrong crowd?" Harry asked.

Draco's eyes darted over to Ron and Neville who were standing just next to us. He eyed them up and down with a look of disgust on his face.

"Red hair, freckles, and hand-me-down robes," Draco scoffed. "You must be a Weasley. That's what I mean by the wrong crowd. You're the Potters - you don't need to be around his kind."

Ron's face went completely red, clearly embarrassed, but did not say a word to Draco Malfoy.

"I think we can choose who we want to be around for ourselves," Harry said with a dark look on his face.

Draco looked like he was about to say something, but he was stopped when our attention was taken from an older woman who stepped up behind him. She had a tight bun on the top of her head, green robes, and a look that demanded attention. She cleared her throat when she saw Draco still had his back to her when everyone else was already looking directly at her.

"Hello, and welcome to Hogwarts," the woman said. "I am Professor McGonagall and I will be leading you into the start of the year banquet in the Great Hall in a moment for the Sorting ceremony. There, you will be sorted into one of four houses: Gryffindor, Ravenclaw, Slytherin, or Hufflepuff. These houses will be your family during your stay here at Hogwarts, and we expect you all to be a benefit to them all. You will help your house throughout the year by representing them well in the hopes of earning honor and house points, and you will try to avoid breaking the rules at the cost of dishonoring your house and losing house points. At the end of the year, the house with the most points will be awarded the House Cup - a great honor at Hogwarts. Now, wait here a moment and try to make yourselves presentable. I will be back in a moment when we are ready for you."

When she left the room, the chattering started up again.

"How do we get sorted into the houses?" I asked Harry and Ron.

"Fred and George told me that there was some kind of test," Ron told us nervously.

"A test!" Hermione said, joining our conversation as she stepped over toward us. "I hope I do well! I've read nearly every book on our list."

"I've hardly read anything," Harry said. "I didn't think we had to."

"I didn't even open up a book," Ron said.

"I looked over some of the books," I said nervously. "But I didn't know we were going to be tested!"

At that moment, Professor McGonagall walked back into the corridor with an expectant look. She told us that it was time for us to attend the Sorting Ceremony and we were to walk into the Great Hall in an orderly fashion and listen for further instruction. As we lined up and the doors opened into the other room, I instantly began to panic. I hadn't read nearly enough to be ready for any kind of test, and I wasn't sure what that would mean for Sorting. I instantly began to review everything that I remembered from the potions and defence against the dark arts books that I read just before leaving Privet Drive. That was the one that caught my attention the most, but I was hardly ready to be tested on it. As my part of the line got into the Great Hall, I looked back nervously at Harry and he gave me a reassuring smile. I took a deep breath and my eyes grew wide when I saw the room in its entirety.

The Great Hall was enormous. There were two long tables on each side of the line the first years walked along, and every student was looking directly at our group. Above us there were several small candles floating in the air to light up the room. On the far side of the room, just above the four long tables, there was a table with several adults, most likely the professors, who were facing toward us. One thing that really stood out to me was the presence of what seemed to be ghosts floating around the Great Hall. Most of the first years began to whisper to each other about it for a moment, but they didn't seem to faze the older students. It didn't take us long before we were standing just below the professor's table with Professor McGonagall in front of us with a single stool sitting beside her that had a large, old-looking hat on top of it. The quiet murmuring among the students instantly stopped once we were all standing in a semicircle around Professor McGonagall and the stool.

"Welcome to the Hogwarts Sorting Ceremony," Professor McGonagall announced. "One by one, each of the first year students will be called to be seated by the Sorting Hat into one of the four Hogwarts Houses: Gryffindor, Ravenclaw, Slytherin, and Hufflepuff. When I call your name, take a seat on the stool."

"So there's no test?" I asked Harry and Ron.

"I guess not," Harry shrugged.

"Abbot, Hannah!" McGonagall called.

A small, blonde girl stepped forward out of the crowd of first years and her face went completely red when she sat down on the stool to see everyone staring at her. Professor McGonagall placed the large wizarding cap on the top of her head, and I was shocked when an inquisitive face suddenly formed on the front of the Sorting Hat.

"Hufflepuff!" the hat shouted.

One of the four tables, presumably other students in the Hufflepuff house, began to cheer loudly once the hat announced her house. Considering all of the strange events that happened since finding out we were a witch and wizard, I should not have been that surprised to see that a hat could talk, but it still made me jump when it yelled out the name.

Following Hannah Abbot, several other students were called in alphabetical order to take their turn getting sorted into the four houses. One of the first faces I recognized who got sorted was Hermione Granger, who was sorted into Gryffindor - the house of the brave, according to Ron whose whole family had been sorted into it. Neville Longbottom was sorted a while later, and he was also sent into Gryffindor, which surprised me considering he didn't seem like the bravest person in the world when I spoke to him on the train. Next, I recognized Draco Malfoy, who was immediately sorted into Slytherin, the house known for having witches and wizards who went bad, like Voldemort. Not long after he was sorted, I heard my brother's name being called.

"Potter, Harry!"

When his name was called, there was immediate chatter that went across the room that instantly made me feel nervous. Harry's took a few moments to figure out where he belonged. I had a sudden gut wrenching feeling when I realized that there was a possibility that we could be sorted into different houses and not be able to see each other as much. I had been tied to Harry for my entire life and I didn't know what I would do if I was separated from him. I didn't have much time to worry about it much longer when the hat shouted,

"GRYFFINDOR!"

And then my name was called.

"Potter, Rose!" Professor McGonagall read.

Everyone grew silent again. I slowly stepped forward toward the stool when something, or rather someone, caught my eye from the High Table. A pale man with nearly greasy black hair and completely black robes was eying me strangely. I was starting to get used to the strange looks people were giving me when they found out who I was, but the look on his face was odd in that it looked more haunted than anything else. When he saw me looking directly back at him, his head shot in another direction and his face paled more than it already was.

I passed Harry who walked towards the Gryffindor table, and sat down on the stool and Professor McGonagall placed the hat right on top of my head. As soon as she did, I began to hear a strange voice in my head that could only have belonged to the hat. Judging by other people's expressions, it became clear that I was the only one who could hear the hat speaking at the moment.

 _Hmm...interesting_ , the hat said inside of my head.

 _What's interesting?_ I thought to myself.

 _You have an interesting mind, the hat responded. I'm not sure where to put you..._

 _What were you thinking_? I asked the voice.

 _You have a lot of determination, the hat said. But I'm stuck between two choices. Slytherin or Gryffindor...hmmm..._

 _I don't want to be in Slytherin,_ I responded.

 _Why not_? the hat asked. _You could do that house some good, but I suppose you might be right_.

"GRYFFINDOR!" the hat suddenly shouted so everyone in the room could hear.

Without comprehending fully what just happened, I quickly made my way over to the furthest table once Professor McGonagall took the hat off of my head. I sat next to Neville Longbottom and Harry. We were seated next to Ron Weasley's twin brothers at the moment who were cheering, "WE GOT THE POTTERS!" above everyone else.

The remainder of the students were quickly sorted into their respective houses once we were finished. Ron was unsurprisingly sorted into the same houses as all of his family before him. Not long after Ron was sorted, the Ceremony came to a close. Once it did, the entire room became silent when an old man in a purple cloak stood up in the center of the High Table. Without any questions, I instantly knew that this was Albus Dumbledore, headmaster of the school.

"Welcome to Hogwarts!" Professor Dumbledore said. "I look forward to starting a new year with every one of you, but now is not the time for speeches..."

With the wave of his wand, plates full of food suddenly appeared on all the tables in the Great Hall. Everyone began to cheer and hardly anyone was hesitant to get started with filling up their own plates. Up until now, I didn't realize how hungry I had gotten. Trying to ignore some of the looks that Harry and I were getting from our fellow Gryffindors for our presence at the table, I began to grab for every piece of food I wanted. Once I had a few bites of food, my attention turned back to the man sitting at the High Table with the black hair and robes.

"Does anyone know who that man is up there?" I asked to the general area around my table. "The one in all black?"

"That's Professor Snape," the oldest Weasley brother piped up next to one of his younger twin brothers. "He's the Potions Master here at Hogwarts. Why do you ask?"

"I'm not sure," I said as I looked at Professor Snape curiously. "He just gave me the strangest look when I was getting sorted."

"I wouldn't take it too seriously," the redheaded boy said. "Snape has a bad temper and hardly takes kindly to anyone outside of Slytherin House. He's been bitter as long as anyone has known him because he's always been after the Defence Against the Dark Arts position."

"Oh, okay," I said, but still couldn't get that haunted look of his out of my head.

"I'm Percy Weasley, by the way," the boy said.

"And I'm Rose -" I started.

"Oh, I know who you are," Percy said, almost laughing. "Everyone here knows who you two are."

Him saying that made me feel very uncomfortable. It was obviously no mystery that our presence here made an impression on people, but someone saying it out loud made me almost embarrassed. Everyone in this room knew who Harry and I were, but we had only just figured out a month ago. We were famous for something we couldn't even remember, and everyone had known this for as long as we had been alive without us knowing anything.

Exiting the conversation with Percy, I put my attention back on my food and began to look around the room as I ate. The ceiling above me looked almost as if it were a real sky to the point I even began to question whether or not it was real. The ghosts were floating around the room and talking to the students as if it were the most normal thing in the world. Everything was incredible.

I was finally brought back to reality when my eyes went back over to the High Table and a pain suddenly shot right through the right side of my forehead. Oddly enough, Harry seemed to have gotten a similar pain as we both grabbed our foreheads at the same time in an attempt to stop the pain.

"Ow!" we both said at once.

Ron, who sat across from us, raised an eyebrow as he chewed and swallowed another piece of chicken.

"What was that about?" Ron asked looking at both of us.

"I'm not sure," Harry spoke for both of us. "I was just looking up at Professor Snape and my scar started burning."

"Hmm..." Ron said. "That's strange."

I didn't get the same feeling as my brother that it had any relation to this professor, but something was definitely strange. The pain ended up going away as the dinner went on without another incident. A good amount of time passed and it seemed that everyone was pretty much done eating for the feast when Professor Dumbledore stood up from his seat once more.

"Thank you all for attending the feast," Dumbledore said. "I hope that you all have had your fill, but I believe that it is time that we all move toward the dormitories to sleep off all of this food. Goodnight to all, and I wish you all a wonderful year."

He waved his wand in his hand and all of the mess vanished before our eyes, which won the applause of some of the newer students, much to Dumbledore's amusement. Once the crowd began to disperse, Percy Weasley stood up and began to call attention to the Gryffindor House.

"First years, follow me!" he called. "I'm one of the Gryffindor prefects, and I will be leading you all to GryffindorTower...FOLLOW ME!"

All of the first years began to gather up behind him, and, oddly enough, the Weasley twins also fell in amongst us.

"I'm a prefect!" one of the twins mimicked as he walked behind Percy.

"I'm a complete baboon!" the other twin mocked.

Most of the first year students, including me, laughed at the impersonation that the twins were putting on behind their brother without his notice. As they started to walk behind him and mimic his posture and gait to perfection, Percy suddenly turned around with a stern look on his face.

"What are you two doing?" Percy asked.

"Just accompanying these first years to their dorms," one of the twins said.

"We're just trying to be friendly," the other said.

Percy rolled his eyes and motioned for everyone to continue following him despite his obvious desire for his younger  
brothers to leave him alone. Since they were caught, they fell back into the crowd of first years and pretended to be fascinated by the school they had already attended for a year as we made our way through the halls. Before I knew it, they suddenly dropped back and they both stood on either side of Harry and me in an attempt to sandwich us both in.

"Hello," one of them said with a giant smile on his face.

"I don't believe we've had the chance to talk," the other said.

"We haven't," Harry said.

"I'm Fred," one said.

"I'm George," the other said.

"I'm-" Harry started.

"Harry," George said.

"And you're Rose," Fred said.

"Trust me, we know," George said. "Everyone's been talking about you."

"Great," I muttered. "Already the school freaks."

"Woah," George said, almost looking offended. "Don't try to take our titles from us on your first day."

"Freak is not a title given," Fred said as he held onto Harry's shoulder for dramatic effect. "It's earned."

"Fred and George," Percy called from ahead of us. "Are you bothering the first years?"

"Of course not!" Fred called up.

"They love us!" George called up to his brother and then turned to us saying, "Don't you?"

Harry and I both laughed and continued to walk ahead. Fred and George remained by our sides with Ron following behind us as we moved toward the GryffindorTower with the rest of the first years. It wasn't long before we found ourselves in front of a large, moving portrait of a large woman in an elegant pink dress.

"And here we are!" Percy announced. "The portrait of The Fat Lady serves as the entrance to the GryffindorTower. In order to get past her, you must remember the password that you are given. If you forget this, you will be stuck out here - so do your best to remember it. If the password changes, as it always does, you will be notified. For right now, the password is Caput Draconis."

"Welcome to Hogwarts, children," the Fat Lady said with a welcoming smile.

As she spoke, the portrait that she was on began to swing open like a door to reveal the Gryffindor common room. The circular room was filled with various comfortable looking chairs, desks, and bookshelves that we were all free to use whenever we wished. Percy quickly discussed the importance of the common room for Gryffindor House because of the camaraderie it brings between its members before showing us toward the girls and boys separate dormitories where we would sleep.

When I walked into the girl's dormitory, I discovered that I would be sharing a room with my fellow first year Gryffindor girls because each year was separated into its own room. In this room, I got to meet Lavender Brown, Parvati Patil, and Hermione Granger. While I was there, I discovered that Parvati Patil was also a twin, but she was separate from her sister during the Sorting Ceremony when Padma, her identical twin sister, was placed into Ravenclaw, much to her dismay. As upset as I was to hear that she was separated from her sister, it made me realize how fortunate I was to be placed into the same house as Harry.


	6. Chapter 6

We had only been in class for a day and a half, but we were starting to get used to the building and its strange layout.  
We quickly discovered that most of the staircases in the building would move without warning and we had to give ourselves extra time to make sure they didn't make us late to class because we had to take another route. Even if we did get lost in the giant castle, we found that some of the ghosts and paintings would generally help us along the way if we needed it. For the most part, we tried to stick in groups so that we could help each other find our way from class to class throughout the day.

"Okay, so we have Potions next," I said as I read off the schedule to Harry and Ron as we walked through the hallways.

"Great," muttered Ron. "I heard that Snape makes that class awful."

When we arrived in the dungeons where Potions class took place, I saw that we shared this class with the first year Slytherin class. This included Draco Malfoy and his group of snarky friends who perked up when he saw us walking into the classroom. I tried to ignore them muttering to themselves, obviously about us. We weren't the first people to class, so most of the seats were taken. Since there were only two people for each of tables, I took my seat next to Neville Longbottom as Harry and Ron took the seats in front of us.

"Oh, look!" Draco spoke up as I sat down. "Longbottom's got himself a girlfriend."

Draco's friends started laughing as Neville's face went red and he avoided eye contact with me.

"Jealous, Draco?" I shot back.

The Gryffindor students in the class started laughing as Draco's face began to match Neville's embarrassment. Clearly I hit a nerve.

"Yeah, right," Draco muttered as he sat back down next to his friends.

The laughing and chatter in the room quickly died when the door in the back suddenly burst open. From the door came Professor Severus Snape, wearing all black as usual, and not wasting a single moment of his teaching time as he immediately began speaking as he passed by the rows on his way to the front of the room.

"I see that you all found your way to Potions class today," Snape said. "This course, unlike others, will not require you all to use your wands and wave them around in a ridiculous fashion to accomplish our goals. You will instead view this class as one that teaches you the art of potion making in a way that may make you believe that it is not even really magic. This class should not be difficult for students who are competent in the slightest, though most students seem to fail regardless."

Everyone in the classroom was silent, and we were all staring at Snape and listening to his every word. Professor Snape gazed around the room at everyone, but his eyes seemed to linger in my direction for a moment. When he caught my eye, I thought I noticed a sudden flinch in his face before he eyed my brother.

"I see we have the Potters this year," he muttered. "Our new...celebrities? How charming. I hope the two of you don't expect the star treatment in this classroom that you get everywhere else."

"No, we don't - " Harry started.

"Tell me, Mr. Potter," he interrupted. "What would I get if I added powdered root of asphodel to an infusion of wormwood?"

I thought back to the Potions book that I looked over during the summer. Since this was the only textbook that seemed to really catch my attention, I thought I might know the answer, but stopped myself from talking as Harry struggled in front of me because I wasn't sure whether or not I was right, and Hermione Granger's hand shot in the hair.

"I'm not sure..." Harry said nervously.

"Interesting..." Snape said. "How about this: where would you look if I told you to find me a bezoar?"

Hermione's hand shot up again, and Harry started moving around in his chair uncomfortably. Knowing how little Harry looked at his potions book, I seriously doubted that he would know the answer to any question that Snape had to ask. I, on the other hand, knew that a bezoar was a stone that was taken from the stomach of a goat that could be used to save people from poisons. I remembered reading about it when Dudley was crying to his mother about another one of his toys breaking outside of our room at Privet Drive.

"Don't know that one either," Snape said. "This one should be easier: what's the difference between monkshood and wolfsbane?"

Hermione's hand was now waving frantically in the air, but Snape was clearly ignoring her. I wish she would stop, because it was clear that Snape was doing this to antagonize Harry for some unknown reason. He wasn't going to call on anyone else.

"Seems like fame isn't everything," Snape said slowly.

With this remark, some of the Slytherin students started laughing. I wondered if he did this in every class. Maybe he was doing this because he was the head of Slytherin house and had it out against Gryffindor House. The Weasley twins told us the day before that Snape was very serious about Slytherin pride and his deep hatred for Gryffindor, their greatest rival.

"Ms. Potter!" Snape said suddenly without looking at me. "Perhaps you know the difference between monshood and wolfsbane?"

"Er..." I started and noticed several eyes shift in my direction. "Aren't they different names for the same thing?"

Snape suddenly stopped pacing the floor and turned to face me with a surprised look on his face. Everyone in the class remained silent as if they were preparing themselves for him to tell me that I was wrong, but I knew that I was not.

"That is...correct," Snape said with a curious look. "If you know that much, then perhaps you might know what you get if I added powdered root of asphodel to an infusion of wormwood?"

The whole class looked from both Snape to me without making a single sound. Even Draco Malfoy seemed to be hanging on to every word and moment of this conversation.

"Powdered root of asphodel...to an infusion of wormwood," I repeated as I thought back to the book. "I think that was...is it Draught of Living Death?"

"Right..." he nodded as he slowly walked over to his desk. "Draught of Living Death...well, at least one of you seems to have the decency to open up a book."

After that remark, Professor Snape continued on by telling us to get into pairs so that we could work on some basic potions for the rest of the class. While we started reading off the instructions that Snape put up on the board, I noticed that there were whispers around the room as people started to look in my direction. Trying to ignore them, I placed a cauldron in between Neville and I so we could get started on our work. Once Snape turned around, everyone grew silent again and we were instructed to gather supplies for a cure for boils.

"How did you know all of that?" Neville asked once we got our potion boiling.

"The instructions are right there," I said as I pointed to the board.

"No, not for the potion," Neville said. "The questions that Snape asked - I had never even heard of some of that stuff."

Hearing our conversation, Harry and Ron turned around to join in. Both of them looked just as baffled as Neville about the entire situation.

"That was incredible," Ron said. "Did you see his face? He wanted you to get one wrong so badly."

"I just remembered reading it from the summer," I shrugged. "I thought it was interesting, and it was a lot better than having to listen to Dudley's complaining."

"I wish you would have told me some of that before we got in here," Harry muttered. "He made me look like I didn't know anything."

"To be fair, most of us in here didn't know it," Ron said.

Just as he said that, Professor Snape glared over at the boys in front of us and walked over to see what we were all doing.

"Potter and Weasley," Snape said. "Keep your eyes on your own work - five points from Gryffindor. Ms. Potter and Longbottom - what are you doing?"

"Our potion is brewing," I said. "We just have about 15 minutes left to wait."

Looking like he wanted to catch me doing something I wasn't supposed to be doing in his class, he stepped over and looked into the cauldron that sat in between Neville and me. Seeing that it was the right color, he looked between both of us.

"Have you let him do any of the work?" Snape asked without meeting my eye. "Longbottom, what has your contribution been?"

Neville's face went red and he looked over to me as if I had all the answers.

"He crushed the snake fangs," I told him. "We've both been working, sir."

"Well...keep working and don't let it boil over," he said as he walked over to look at Draco Malfoy's cauldron.

After he left, Neville let out a long breath that he seemed to have been holding in since Professor Snape stepped over and addressed him directly. We weren't addressed again until the end of class where we all held our completed potions for Snape's evaluation on whether or not we were competent or not before we were allowed to leave the class. Luckily, Neville's and my potion was good enough to not get a bad remark from Snape and we were allowed to leave the room. We both waited outside for Harry and Ron to join us before we all started walking toward the Great Hall for dinner. However, we didn't get that far before I was tapped on the shoulder by someone behind me.

"I'm glad that I'm not the only Gryffindor that read over my textbooks," Hermione said to me as she started walking next to all of us. "I was raising my hand for every single question he asked, but he refused to call on me."  
"I didn't read all of my textbooks," I admitted. "I was just really interested in the potions and the defence against the dark arts textbooks."

"Well, at least you read something," she said. "Now we can both try to get points for Gryffindor in our classes."

Without saying anything else, Hermione ended our conversation as she turned away to go somewhere else before she joined everyone else for dinner. We were about to sit down on one end of the table when Ron's twin brothers waved us down and told us to join them. We walked over there and didn't even sit down when George spoke up.

"Rosie, what is this that I heard you told off Snape in your first class with him?" George asked.

"I heard that you called him a greasy-headed git that needs to try using some soap," Fred commented.

"What are you two talking about?" I asked looking from one to the other as I grabbed for some mashed potatoes to add to my plate.

"Don't tell me it isn't true," Fred said with a look of despair.

"None of it," I said. "Who did you hear that from?"

"Some first years," George said and turned to his brother. "You owe me 2 Sickles."

Fred rolled his eyes and dug two coins out of his pocket and tossed them over to George who now had a huge smile on his face as he looked at his winnings. I was about to ask why they even bothered to bet on something like this, but figured that it wasn't worth it. They seemed like the kind of people who tried to make fun out of almost anything.

"So what really happened?" George asked as he tucked his winnings into his pocket.

"All I did was answer some of his questions right," I told them.

"You should have seen his face though!" Ron said from the other side of Harry, who was sitting next to me. "He was shocked! He hardly even spoke for the rest of the class."

"Wow," Fred said. "You might deserve some kind of medal of honor."

I wasn't sure why this was so impressive that I managed to make Snape go quiet for a class period, but we didn't talk any more about it when we noticed Snape walking through the doors into the Great Hall. I guess that I just needed to prepare myself to deal with the fact that he was now going to have higher expectations of me in the class, which could turn out either really good or really bad. He just wanted to look for an excuse to belittle anyone in the Gryffindor House, and I was going to have to make it difficult for him.


	7. Chapter 7

"Welcome to your first flying lesson!" Madame Hooch announced.

All of the first years were standing out in the Quidditch field, lined up with a broom beside each of us.

"Okay," she addressed us all. "To pick up your broom, you must place your hand above the broom and say 'up!'"

Everyone stood still, staring at one another.

"...you may begin," she said.

"Up!" Harry and I said together, the broom flying up into our hands.

Ron looked at us with a raised eyebrow and said, "Up!"

The broom flew up and hit him square in the face. Harry and I burst into laughter.

"Shut up!" Ron laughed, rubbing his forehead.

After a few minutes, everyone had a broom in hand.

"Okay, now you will mount your brooms..." Madame Hooch started, pausing for a moment to allow us to get on our brooms. "Now, when I blow on my whistle, I want you all to push gently off of the ground for a moment and return to the ground."

She reached for her whistle, but everyone's attention was directed to my right. Neville, thinking that he might need a head start, slowly began to rise off the ground.

"Go back down, Mr. Longbottom!" the teacher instructed, but remained airborne.

"Neville, get down!"

"Neville!"

"Mr. Longbottom!"

Neville soared through the air, his broom doing spins and flips all around the field. All of the Gryffindors ran after him, but were unable to keep up with his broom that was constantly changing direction. Suddenly, the broom flew straight over the castle and Neville fell off of it, catching himself momentarily on ledges, and fell onto the ground.

"Everyone stay where you are," Madame Hootch said as she rushed over to where Neville had landed.

"Are you all right?" she asked him, helping him off the ground.

"Ow!" he yelled, grabbing at his wrist.

"I'm going to bring Mr. Longbottom to the hospital wing," the teacher said. "You are to all stay on the ground. If I see any brooms in the air, you'll be out of here faster than you can say Quidditch..."

Madame Hootch walked off of the field with Neville, everyone remaining silent while she was still in view.

"What is this?" Draco said walking to where Neville had been moments ago.

"That's a remembrall...it helps you remember things!" a big Slytherin named Goyle said.

"I know what a remembrall is, Goyle," Draco snapped. "Did you see his face? Maybe if the fat lump had given this a squeeze, he'd have remembered to fall on his fat ass."

All of the Slytherins laughed.

"Give that to me, Malfoy," Harry said holding his hand out.

Malfoy laughed, "Why don't you get it yourself, Potter."

Malfoy grabbed his broom and went up into the air with grace.

"No, Harry!" Hermione yelled as Harry got onto his broom."You'll get expelled!"

He flew off after Malfoy.

"What does he think he's doing?" Hermione asked me.

"No idea..." I muttered looking after my brother in the sky.

They were apparently speaking when, suddenly, Malfoy suddenly threw the remembrall away from them both. Harry flew after the small ball quickly.

Draco landed a few feet away from me, smiling in satisfaction.

"Really?" I asked him, crossing my arms. "Was that completely necessary Malfoy?"

"I believe it was, Potter," he said casually as he walked over to Crabbe and Goyle.

I looked back up at my brother who was about to collide with a wall. He came to a quick stop and held up the remembrall.

The Gryffindors cheered as Harry made his way back to the crowd.

"That was brilliant!" Ron said.

"Nice catch," I said patting my brother on the back.

"Thanks," he said, half laughing.

"Harry Potter!" someone yelled.

Everyone stopped cheering and looked over towards the entrance of the field. There stood Professor McGonagall. Harry looked at me, his eyes wide. He handed me the remembrall and walked slowly over to the teacher and off the grounds.

"What did I say?" Hermione said, throwing her arms up. "I said, you're going to get expelled Harry! So what does he do? He goes off and-"

"Hermione," I interrupted.

"Yeah?"

"Shut up."

Ron laughed just as Madame Hootch returned to the field.

"That was dreadful," Hermione mumbled as we all left the field.

Hermione, to everyone's enjoyment, was an awful flier. It appeared that if their wasn't a book explaining the proper way to do something, then Hermione was lost. Ron didn't do bad and apparently I was considered a natural by both Ron and Madame Hootch. The only person that did equally as well as myself was Draco Malfoy, who bragged continuously about it.

"I am only fabulous because my father provides me with the best equipment," he said to a group of admirers as we made our way to the castle. "Maybe one day you could attempt to reach my level, but it may take years."

"Please," Ron muttered.

"Have a problem, Weasley?" Draco snarled.

"Not at all, Malfoy," he snarled back.

-

"She's letting you be the Seeker!" Ron yelled when we saw Harry at dinner. "They never let first years on the Quidditch team!"

"Yeah, they told me that training is going to start soon," Harry smiled.

"Congratulations, Potter," Snape said walking up behind him. "Try not to fall off your broom...that would be a pity..."

He glanced at me for a moment, suddenly looking sad, but walked away.

"What's this that your on the Quidditch team Potter?" Draco walked over to our table. "Who'd you have to pay for that one?"

Crabbe and Goyle laughed.

"Shove it, Malfoy," Harry snarled.

"Say it again," Malfoy growled walking closer.

"You heard me," Harry narrowed his eyes.

"Well if you think that you're so tough, then I challenge you to a duel," Malfoy said. "Who's your second, Potter?

"Wh-" Harry began.

"I am," Ron intervened.

"Then it'll be in the trophy room at midnight," he spat and went back to the Slytherin table.

"What is a second?" I asked Ron.

"Oh, it's the person that takes over for you if you die in a duel," he said grabbing a piece of chicken.

"Well, that's comforting..." I said looking a Harry.


	8. Chapter 8

"We should probably go, it's almost midnight," I said looking over at the clock in the common room.

Harry, Ron, and I went to walk out of the common, but heard someone following us.

"I'm coming with you," Hermione Granger announced walking into the common room from the girls' dormitories.

We all stopped and looked at her.

"Uh...no you're not," Ron said.

"You all don't know what you are doing and you're goin to get Gryffindor in trouble!" Hermione said. "You've already lost enough points for us and at the rate you're going you're going to make Gryffindor lose and-"

"Hermione!" I cut her off. "If we let you come with us will you please shut up?"

She paused for a moment and then nodded.

Ron groaned as all four of us went to leave the common room. However, we were stopped when we saw someone else.

"I thought no one was going to come!" Neville said as he scrambled up and smiled at us. "Wait...what are you all up to?"

"Um...you know...we wanted to get some...uh...cheese from the kitchen," I said.

"Cheese?" Neville asked raising his eyebrows.

"Malfoy and Harry are going to have a duel in the trophy room," Hermione said.

"Hermione!" Ron whisper-yelled.

"I want to come!" Neville told us.

"Let's just go," I said motioning for Neville to join with us.

We had to be extra quite because it was against the rules to be out bed after hours in the first place. It took us a few minutes to get to the trophy room, but we managed to get there without making any noise. However, when we got there, the room was empty and we were a little late.

"Where's Malfoy?" Hermione whispered.

"No idea," Harry whispered back.

We stood there for a few minutes silently when we heard a noise from the opposite hallway.

"We have to catch the children out of bed, Mrs. Norris...said they'd be in the trophy room, he did," a voice said.

"Filtch," Ron said.

"What are we gonna do?" Neville said.

"Run!" I said.

"There they are!" Filtch shouted.

"NOW!" I yelled.

We all turned around, running at full speed through the hallways. We turned every corner and ran up several different staircases and through and through a door until we ran into a dead end: the door was locked.

"It's locked!" Ron said, rattling the handle on the door.

"Move over!" I said pushing Ron to the side.

I pulled my wand out of my pocket and tapped onto the handle and said, "Alohomora!"

The door unlocked and opened up. We quickly piled into the room as we heard Filtch approaching. When the door was closed, we all tried to listen to what was happening on the other side.

"Must of gotten away, Mrs. Norris," Filtch said to his cat. "I'll catch 'em next time."

We stood there for a minute, making sure he left. I felt someone pulling on my shirt behind me.

"What is it Neville?" I asked, still listening for Filtch.

"L-l-look!" he whimpered.

I turned around to see what he was talking about, as did everyone else. Nothing could have prepared us for what we saw. Behind us, in the small room, stood a gigantic three-headed dog that was growling at us. We paused for a moment and then started screaming. The giant dog growled loudly and lunged for us. We scrambled out of the door and, using our combined weight, managed to close and lock the door. Even though the door behind us was shut, we all sprinted back to the GryffindorTower with extreme speed. When we got into the common room, we finally stopped.

"What was that?" Neville asked.

"Never mind what it was!" Hermione said. "Did you see what was under its feet?"

"No Hermione, I was focused on the fact that thing had THREE heads! Maybe you noticed that!" Ron whisper-yelled.

"There was a door!" Hermione said, completely ignoring Ron. "It was guarding something!"

We all looked around at each other, thinking about what the thing could possibly be guarding.

"Now if you all don't mind, I'm going to bed before either of you all come up with another clever idea to get us killed - or worse, expelled," Hermione said as she walked into the girls dormitories.

"She needs to sort out her priorities..." Ron muttered.

-

"Is that a Nimbus Two Thousand?" Ron shouted at breakfast the following morning.

"That's what it says on the top," I said reading it. "Is that a good one?"

"You can't be serious, Potter," Fred said as he walked over to the table.

"That's the best broom that there is," George said.

"Who gave it to you?" Fred asked Harry.

"I'm not sure..." Harry said looking for a note.

"Harry," I said pointing up to Professor McGonagall at the teacher's table, who smiled at us when we caught her eye.

"So, when are you going to start training?" Fred asked.

"Tonight," Harry said.

"Are you two on the team?" I asked.

"Yeah, we're the Beaters on the team," George said.

"What do they do?" I asked.

"They just make sure that the other player's brains stay in their heads," Fred said grabbing a piece of toast and shoving it into his mouth.

"Sounds fun," I said.

-

"You're supposed to stir the potion three time clockwise, Longbottom, not counterclockwise," Snape muttered as he checked my neighbor's work.

So far, almost every Gryffindor in the class has failed the potion we were making today - including Harry, Ron, and Neville. Now, the professor stood over my cauldron, examining my work.

He stood in front of the potion for a while, looking closely at it. Every so often, he would glance up at me and back down at the potion.

"Well done..." Snape murmured and said something under his breath.

"What was that?" I asked.

He looked at me, for the first time, right into my eyes. For a moment, I saw something more than just his dark eyes. He looked sad. His eyes were shining and his face dropped. He normally looked so angry, but something changed when our eyes met, I just didn't understand what...

"Nothing..." he whispered and slowly walked over to the next table, looking lost in thought.

When everyone's potion had been graded, Snape took his place in front of the room once again.

"You all did...dreadful," Snape said as he paced through the front of the class. "Only two of you managed to complete the potion without a single error: Hermione Granger and... Rose Potter. Considering that the rest of you do not understand the proper way to create this potion, I expect you all to write an essay explaining what you did wrong and how you should actually make this potion without having it explode," he glared at Neville and Seamus. "However, the two people that made this potion correctly are exempt from this assignment..." he finished.

-

"You just wave your wand and say 'Wingardium Leviosa.'" Professor Flitwick instructed. "Remember swish and flick!"

We all had feathers sitting in front of us and we were supposed to make the levitate.

So far, no one had been able to make their feathers move, including Harry and me.

"Wingardrium leviosaaa," Ron said stabbing his feather repeatedly.

"No, no, no!" Hermione said. "You're doing it wrong. It's pronounced Wingardium Leviosa, you have to say it right."

"Well if you're so brilliant, why don't you do it!" Ron said.

"Fine," Hermione said picking up her wand. "Wingardium Leviosa!"

The feather slowly began to float up into the air.

"Congratulations Ms. Granger!" Professor Flitwick clapped.

"Well, aren't you just talented," Ron muttered.

If Hermione had heard him, she didn't show it, she just watched her feather.

-

"It's no wonder she doesn't have any friends!" Ron said after class. "She's always showing off!"

Suddenly I saw a person with big, bushy hair push past Ron, walking fast.


	9. Chapter 9

"Where's Hermione?" I asked at dinner.

"I don't know," Ron said shoving a piece of pumpkin pie in his mouth. "But she's missing an amazing Halloween feast."

"I heard that she was in the bathroom," Neville said as he sat down a little ways from us. "She's been in there all day, been crying I heard."

I looked directly at Ron.

"What?" he said as food fell out of his mouth.

"You know that this is your fault, right?"

"Oh, she'll get over it," he said, making me roll my eyes.

Suddenly, the doors to the Great Hall burst open.

"TROLL!" Professor Quirrell yelled. "IN THE DUNGEONS!"

Everyone was silent, including the teachers, just staring at the man in the purple turban.

"Just thought you should know," he said and collapsed to the floor.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!" several people screamed and the room went into total chaos.

"SILENCE" Professor Dumbledore yelled over the crowd, when everyone went silent, he started talking again.

"Prefects, please take your houses to your dormitories in an orderly fashion," he instructed. "Please avoid the dungeons while we get the troll out and please stay calm and stick together."

"Gryffindors!" Percy Weasley yelled and I heard several different prefects calling to their houses.

Everyone scrambled towards Percy and got out of the Great Hall, which took a while because of all the people.

"WAIT!" I said pulling Harry and Ron off to the side.

"They said to go to the common room!" Ron said.

"What about Hermione!" I said.

"She doesn't know about the troll," Harry said.

We ran through the crowd and through the hallways to where the bathrooms were.

"Stop!" I said holding my arms out to stop both of them.

Ahead of us was the troll. It was huge and ugly and was holding a large club in it's hands. It was walking right for the girls bathroom.

"What do we do?" Ron asked.

Once the troll had gotten into the bathroom, all three of us ran into the room. Right when we got in there, we heard a big smash and a scream. The troll had smashed the bathroom stalls. Hermione was crawling from underneath some debris in attempt to escape.

"Hermione!" Harry yelled.

Her head shot up for a moment, then she scrambled to stand up to run away from her attacker.

The troll swung his club again and Hermione dropped to the floor to dodge it.

"DO SOMETHING!" she screamed as she ran further away from the troll.

The troll went to swing his club again, but Harry and I stopped it when we both ran at it. We jumped onto its shoulders and it began to swing around to try to hit us.

"RON! DO SOMETHING!" I yelled.

"What?" he asked.

"ANYTHING!" Harry yelled.

Ron pulled out his wand and pointed it at the troll.

"Wingardium Leviosa," he said waving his wand.

Suddenly, the club that the troll was holding flew up into the air. The creature stopped moving and looked around with a dumb expression on its face.

Then, when Ron lowered his wand, the club smashed right into the troll's face. The monster then began to fall to the ground and Harry and I jumped off of it.

Hermione screamed from underneath the sink, where she'd been hiding, when the troll landed feet away from her.  
After a minute or so of just staring at the troll, Hermione stood up.

"Is it...dead?" she asked.

"I don't think so," I said.

"Oh..." she said. "Thanks by the way," she said to us all.

Then we all heard a crowd of people coming into the bathroom. It was Dumbledore, Quirrell, Snape, and McGonagall.

"What-" McGonagall started and then stared at the fallen troll.

"What happened?" Dumbledore asked.

"Hermione was attacked by the troll and we came to help," Ron said.

"And why was Miss Granger in here?" McGonagall asked. "She should have been in her common room."

We all looked at Hermione.

"I thought I could take on the troll myself," she said. "I've read all about them..."

Snape raised an eyebrow at Hermione.

"I see..." McGonagall said. "Everyone get out of here, we need to get rid of this troll..."

I looked over at Snape, who I noticed had a large wound on his right leg that was bleeding. When he saw me looking at it, he quickly covered it.

...

"What was that thing on his leg?" Harry asked.

"I have no idea," Hermione answered.

Harry looked up at the teacher's table at Snape. My brother had that look of discovery on his face.

"What is it?" I asked him.

"I think that he set the troll into the dungeons so he could sneak up to see what that three-headed dog was guarding."

"How did you come up with that?" Ron asked.

"What else could have made that mark on his leg?"

"It could have been anything..." I said looking up at our potions master.

...

"Our first Quidditch match is against Slytherin?" Harry said to Oliver Wood during lunch the following day.

"That's right," Oliver said. "It's going to be on Saturday, so get plenty of sleep and be ready," he said walking away.

"Great," Harry said standing up.

We had Potions next with Snape and Harry was sure that he would say something.

"Here are the instructions," Snape said pointing to the board. "You may begin..."

I turned to my cauldron and ingredients and followed each direction exactly. I was exactly half way through the potion when I noticed that Neville hadn't even started.

"What's the matter?" I asked him as I added some mistletoe berries to the cauldron.

"I..." he started. "I always mess up with this one and I don't really know how to start it..."

"Okay," I said. "Well, first you have to-"

"Miss Potter," Snape muttered from his desk. "Longbottom needs to make this potion by himself..."

"Yeah Potter," Malfoy sneered from his desk. "There's no way you could help a complete idiot like Longbottom anyway-"

"Shut your mouth Malfoy," I cut him off.

"Don't talk to me like that you filthy little-"

"Mr. Malfoy!" Snape interrupted him. "Hold your tongue before I have to give you a months worth of detention!"

"But Potter-" Malfoy began.

"I have ears Mr. Malfoy," Snape sneered. "I heard her. Now I suggest that you continue your work and keep your nose out of other people's business."

Everyone stayed silent for a moment and Malfoy looked stunned.

"Did he just...?" Neville whispered.

"Yell at Malfoy for trying to insult Rose?" Ron finished.

"Yeah..." Harry whispered.


	10. Chapter 10

"Introducing...Johnson...Spinnet...Bell...Wood...Weasley...Weasley...and Potter!" Lee Jordan announced at the start of the Quidditch game.

The Gryffindor team was walking out onto the field, each with a broom in hand with maroon and gold uniforms on. On the other side of the field stood the Slytherin in their green and silver uniforms.

"I've never been to one of these before," Neville said beside me in the stands.

"Me either," I said looking down at the field where my brother stood.

"I heard that they are quite interesting," Hermione said on the other side of me.

"Quidditch is the best sport in the world," Ron said next to Hermione.

Then the teams rose on their broomsticks and faced each other. When Madame Hootch came up on her broomstick she blew a whistle and threw the Quaffle up into the air and the game began.

Each member of the two teams flew throughout the stadium and were throwing the Quaffle around. However, I noticed that the two Seekers both kind of stayed in place, both searching for the Golden Snitch, which Harry had told me about.

"Ten points to Gryffindor!" Lee Jordan announced over the speaker.

Then the Slytherins took the Quaffle and began to move down the field. Within the next few minutes the Slytherins managed to make a goal.

"Ten points to Slytherin..." our Gryffindor announcer mumbled over the speaker.

Suddenly, I saw my brother fly through the air on his new broom and in front of him I could see a small golden speck.

"He found the Snitch!" Ron said practically jumping out of his seat.

Then, suddenly, Harry's broom began to jerk around. It looked as though he was on one of those mechanical bulls that Muggles liked to get on. He was holding onto his broom for dear life, trying not to fall off.

"What's going on?" I asked the people around me. "Is this normal?"

"Definitely not," Ron said.

"Look at Snape," Hermione said.

Across the stadium, in the teachers' section of the seating, Snape could clearly be seen mouthing something and staring directly at Harry.

"Uh...what?" I said looking at Hermione.

"He's jinxing Harry!" she said. "I've read all about jinxes! You have to keep eye contact and say the words, which is exactly what he's doing!"

"I'm not sure..." I mumbled. "I don't think that Snape would do that..."

"I am!" Ron said on the other side of Hermione.

"Well, I'm going to go stop it!" Hermione said as she exited the bleachers that we were sitting on.

"Where do you get that Snape wouldn't do that to Harry?" Ron asked me after Hermione was moving underneath the seating. "Haven't you seen him around Harry?"

"Yes, but I don't know," I said glancing over at our Potions professor. "I just don't think that it's something he would do."

"Yeah, well, you'll see that we're right after Hermione does something to him."

A few moments later, Harry still freaking out on his broom, blue flames shot up from underneath Snape's seat. It took the professor a few moments to realize that he was on fire, but when he did, he managed to knock over a few teachers in the process of hitting the fire out. After it was put out, his head shot back up in the direction of where Harry was.  
I looked over at my brother again and saw that he got back on his broom.

"See?" Ron said pushing my shoulder.

I still didn't believe him, but I wasn't going to tell him that.

I looked at the scoreboard for a moment and noticed that, in all of the confusion, that the Slytherin team had managed to score another goal. Then I saw that Harry was after the other teams seeker who had apparently found the Snitch and was trying to grab it.

They followed the Snitch side by side for a while, both trying to push each other away.

"Is Harry okay?" Hermione asked as she sat down beside me.

"That was brilliant, Hermione!" Ron said.

"Yeah..." she mumbled going a little pink in the face.

Then I saw that Harry was still competing to get to the Snitch. Suddenly, they both were extraordinarily close to the ground when the other Seeker abandoned the Snitch. Harry reached out towards it when he suddenly fell to the ground and rolled.

"Oh my gosh!" Hermione said standing up, which most of the Gryffindors joined her in doing, including myself.

Harry stood up after a few minutes, but didn't look right.

"He looks like he's going to be sick..." Lee Jordan said from the speakers.

That was exactly what I had been thinking. Then my brother bent over and spit something out of his mouth. It was golden with wings.

"HE'S GOT THE SNITCH!" Lee Jordan yelled. "GRYFFINDOR WINS!"

The Gryffindors cheered why the Slytherins groaned.

...

"Harry you did good!" Hagrid said after the game.

"Yeah, it's a good thing that you didn't swallow the Snitch," Ron said. "We probably wouldn't have won!"

"Ron!" Hermione said scolding him.

The five of us walked a little while before anyone said anything.

"I think that Snape was trying to jinx Harry," Hermione said to Hagrid.

"Now, why would Professor Snape do that?" Hagrid said.

"Because he hates Harry!" Hermione says.

"He does not hate Harry, that's ridiculous! Why would he hate him, he hasn't done anything."

"He saw the wound that the three-headed dog gave him and now he's out to get him!" Ron said.

"You all know about Fluffy?" Hagrid asked us all.

"Fluffy?" Harry said.

"That thing has a name?" Hermione said.

"Why does Hogwarts need a three-headed dog?" I asked.

"It's none of yer business what it's doin' there and what it's gaurdin!'"

"So it is guarding something!" Hermione said.

Hagrid looked bewildered.

"I-I didn't say that!"

"So what's it guarding?" I asked him.

"Whatever it's guarding, Snape is trying to get," Ron said.

"Snape is not trying to steal it! He's one of the people that's protectin' it! And it's none of yer business what it's guarding," he yelled, looking furious with himself. "That information is strictly between Professor Dumbledore and Nicolas Flamel."

"Who's Nicolas Flamel?" I asked.

"What...?" he said just realizing what he had said. "I shouldn't have said that..."

"Well, thank you Hagrid!" Hermione said heading back towards the castle with us following closely behind.

When we got into the castle we followed Hermione until we made it into the library.

"What are we doing?" Ron asked.

"We're going to find out who Nicolas Flamel is..." Hermione said as she stacked books into her arms from the shelves.

...

"Hermione," I said closing the book that I had just finished searching. "There is NOTHING in this school about Nicolas Flamel, okay?"

"There has to be!" Hermione said hopelessly.

"We've checked every book in here," Ron said closing his book. "And it's nearly Christmas, I don't want to look at books!"

"Well..." she said. "We haven't checked the restricted section..."

I looked back into the library and saw a place roped off as the "RESTRICTED SECTION." I somehow hadn't noticed it before, probably due to the fact that I rarely came into the library.

"Well, how are we going to get there?" Harry asked still looking through his book.

"We could ask Madame Prince..." Hermione suggested.

I stood up and walked over to the librarian who was sitting behind a desk with a book in her hand. She glared up at me as I walked in her direction and looked aggravated.

"I was wondering if I could check out a book in the restricted section," I said.

"What for?" she asked looking bored.

"Um, well, one that has information on Nicolas Flamel."

"No," she said looking back to her book.

I walked back over to the table where Harry, Ron, and Hermione looked at me hopefully.

"Well, that was pleasant..." I muttered as I sat down.

"She said no?" Hermione asked.

I nodded as I returned all the books I had looked at back to their shelves.

...

"You all promise to look for more information on Nicolas Flamel while I'm gone, right?" Hermione asked as she walked over to where Harry and Ron were playing Wizards Chess and I watched them.

"Sure Hermione..." Ron said as one of his knights smashed a pawn of Harry's.

"That is such a violent game..." Hermione said putting her luggage down.

Hermione was going back to her home for the holidays to go skiing with her parents. Harry, Ron, and I were staying at Hogwarts for the holidays - as much as the Dursleys bright, happy faces would cheer us up over the holidays (not).

"Checkmate!" Ron said as his knight cornered Harry's queen.

"You win..." Harry grumbled.

"Rose, will you make sure that they search for more information on Flamel?" Hermione turned to me looking hopeful.

"I guess so..." I said, not really looking forward to the research over the holidays myself.

"Thanks!" Hermione said as she picked up her luggage again and ran out towards the exit and to the train.


	11. Chapter 11

"Pawn to E5," Ron said.

"Knight to E5," Harry said as his knight smashed the pawn.

Christmas break had started a couple days ago and so far it had been pretty uneventful. The holiday consisted mostly of me watching Harry and Ron play Wizards Chess - Ron winning the majority of the time.

Watching the two play this game continuously was getting kind of old because there wasn't really much to do because the school had become practically vacant once the holidays started.

"I'm going to go walk around..." I said as I stood up and walked out of the common room.

Outside of the room was silent and kind of dark. Through the windows I could see the snow falling heavily though the night.

I glanced at the walls of the castle that were covered in paintings. Each one of the moving figures watched me as I walked by, some smiling, some waving.

I made my way down to the main floor of the castle and saw many of the ghosts passing by. Many of them didn't notice as I walked by and one even flew directly through me, which felt as though I had just had a bucket of ice water dumped on me.

"H-hello Miss P-p-potter," I heard a voice stammer.

I turned around quickly, not expecting to run into anyone at this late hour.

"Oh, hi Professor Quirrell," I smiled back at him.

"Y-you're up l-late," he said slowly walking towards me.

"Yeah," I said taking a step back. "Just walking around."

"I-I do that s-sometimes t-too," he said still creeping slowly towards me.

"I noticed," I said, trying to back away without seeming rude.

"I-interesting h-how people do t-that," he said.

Then he stepped closer to me in a single stride. He slowly lifted his hands and went to reach for me. I couldn't help but notice the crazed expression in his eyes and I stumbled backwards and almost fell to the ground, but was stopped when I hit a wall. My scar suddenly began to burn painfully and my hand flew up to hold it. Suddenly, Quirrell was pulled backwards and the pain stopped.

"What is going on here?" Snape growled at Quirrell, still holding the back of the man's robes.

"N-nothing, S-S-Snape!" he stammered. "I-I j-just ran i-into M-Miss P-P-Potter h-here!"

"Oh really, Quirrell?" Snape spat. "Is that what happened? Just a coincidence?"

"Y-y-y-yes! Of course!" he stammered even more.

"Get out of my sight!" Snape snapped and threw him from his grasp.

Quirrell stumbled around for a moment and practically ran out of the corridor.

Snape glared at the hallway, watching it with an angry expression as if he expected the man to return.

"What was th-?" I started, but was quickly interrupted.

"He didn't touch you did he?" Snape snarled.

"No, but why did h-"

"Did he try to hurt you at all?"

"Well, no I-"

"What did he say to you? Did he threaten you?"

"No, but-"

"If he ever tries to be alone with you ever again, you tell me, okay?"

"I will, but I don't understand-"

"If he ever corners you again, use any spell you know to get away from him, okay?"

"What is this abou-"

"Okay?" he repeated.

"Yes!" I answered. "Can you please tell me-"

"Follow me," he said walking back through the corridor. "You're going back to the Gryffindor Tower and I ask that you remain there for the rest of the night, Miss Potter."

I then realized that this whole answering questions was a one way street. He wasn't going to tell me anything that I wanted to know.

I practically had to run to keep up with him and I noticed him glancing back every so often to make sure I was still following him.

Within a few minutes, we arrived at the Fat Lady's portrait.

"What's going on?" she asked us.

"I ask that you do not allow Miss Potter out of the tower after hours," Snape demanded.

"It's not passed curfew, she's not breaking any rules," the Fat Lady said.

"Fine," he said turning to me. "Miss Potter, I ask that you please do not wander the hallways at night after tonight."

"Why not?" I asked.

"Just do as I say!" Snape half-yelled.

He put his hand on his head and looked down.

"Please, Miss Potter..." he begged.

It was silent for a moment, but then I nodded my head.

"Okay..."

"Thank you," Snape said still looking at the ground.

I walked towards the portrait and opened the door.

"Goodnight Professor," I whispered as I walked into the common room.

"Goodnight..." he whispered back as the door to the tower closed.

I walked into the common room and jumped when the silence was broken.

"Checkmate!" Ron yelled. "I WIN AGAIN!"

"Ugh," Harry groaned. "Oh, hey Rose."

"Whoa I didn't even hear you come in," Ron said.

"Anything interesting happen?" Harry asked as he put away some chess pieces.

"Um..." I said as I thought about Quirrell and Snape. "Nothing really..."

I'm not sure why I didn't tell my brother, after all it was really odd what happened in the hallways, but I just couldn't bring myself to talk about it.

...

"Merry Christmas, Rose!" I heard Harry and Ron call from the common room.

I rubbed my eyes as I got out of bed. I ran down to the common room where I found presents surrounding the Christmas tree.

Ron was ripping apart a gift that turned out to be a sweater with the letter 'R' sewn on it.

I smiled when I saw that Harry had gotten one too.

"We have presents too?" I asked him.

"Yeah," Harry smiled as he pulled on his sweater that had the letter 'H' on it.

I ran over to the tree and picked up one that had my name on it.

Within the next half an hour or so, each one of my presents had been opened. I got a sweater with an 'R' on it and some candy from Mrs. Weasley; a book on potion making from Hermione (she's always going on about how wonderful I am in potions); a chocolate frog from Ron; a box of chocolate cauldrons from Neville; and a pair of old, apparently used, socks from the Dursleys.

"Did you get something from the Dursleys?" I asked Harry as I examined the socks that I was given.

"Yeah," he had a coin. "What did they get you?"

I held up the socks to show him and he laughed.

"Aren't they lovely?" I asked laughing.

"They match you're sweater!" Harry said half-laughing.

I picked up the book that Hermione had given me and opened it up to the first page.

"Wait," Ron said looking at the tree. "There's one more."

He walked over to the tree and picked up a gift that had been placed out of sight.

"It's for both of you," Ron said handing over the gift to us.

I picked up the note that was on it and it read:  
"Your father left this in my possession before he died. It's time to return in to you. Use it well," I read aloud.

I looked at Harry who appeared to be just as confused as me.

Both of us ripped it open and it revealed a very large cloak.

"Well, put it on," Ron said eating a chocolate frog.

When Harry put it on though, both Ron and myself stopped what we were doing.

"Bloody hell," Ron said dropping his half-eaten chocolate frog on the ground.

"What?" Harry asked.

Then he saw it. His whole body, other than his head, were completely invisible.

"That's an invisibility cloak!" Ron said walking over to us. "But, who gave it to you?"

He looked from Harry to me, both of us not knowing the answer.

"There wasn't a name on it," I said. "It just said that it belonged to our father."


	12. Chapter 12

"Potion making is, in a sense, an art of its own kind-" I read from the potions making book that Hermione had given me this morning.

"Hey!" a voice said.

I looked around, but I didn't see anyone, but the voice had sounded like it had only been a few feet away from me.

When I didn't hear anything else, I looked back down at my book.

"Rose!" a voice said, this time it was coming from directly in front of me.

"Harry?" I asked, recognizing the voice.

Then my brother appeared in front of me. He pulled away the invisibility cloak and smiled at me.

"You couldn't see me at all, could you?" he asked.

"No, I thought I was going crazy," I laughed and put my book down. "What are you doing?"

"I was going to go to the restricted section of the library to look for a book on Flamel, want to go with me?"

My first thought went to Snape. For some odd reason, he didn't want me roaming the hallways, so I assumed that meant Harry too. However, in this case, neither of us would be seen by anyone, so I decided that it was safe enough - even though I have no idea what I was supposed to be so dangerous.

"Okay," I said as I threw the large cloak over both of us.

We walked out of the common room and throughout the hallways, which were slightly lit up by the moonlight coming in through the windows of the castle. We had to make sure that we were quiet though - after all, we could still be heard. L

Luckily though, we managed to make it all the way to the library without running into anyone.

When we went into the library, we picked up a nearby lantern and lit it with a match. Although the light could still be seen, no one was in the area that could possibly have seen it. We walked into the area labeled clearly 'RESTRICTED SECTION' and took off the cloak and began our search.

I opened up a couple of the books that might have had some information, but I didn't have any success. Then, Harry picked up a large black book. It was regretted soon after when he opened up the book and it screamed right into his face. He slammed the book shut and shoved it back into its place.

"Who's there?" a voice yelled out.

"Filch!" I whispered to Harry.

Quickly we threw the cloak over us, knocking over the lantern. The lantern shattered on impact, alerting Filch of our location.

We quickly moved away from the area and ran into a nearby corridor.

"What have I told you, Quirrell?" a voice snarled.

Both Harry and I looked over to our right where Snape stood pressing Quirrell against a wall.

"W-what are y-you t-t-talking about S-S-Severus?" he stuttered.

"If I find you walking around in the hallways one more time, you will wish that you were never born!" Snape threatened.

"B-b-but I-" Quirrell began.

"I don't want to hear it," Snape snarled. "You're not getting your hands on them Quirrell, I've already caught you trying to get to the girl! I've warned her and I'm sure she's told her brother the same-"

Snape whipped around and looked directly at us. We quickly covered our mouths, realizing that he must have heard us breathing. He reached over to where we were and looked as though he was trying to grab something.

He knew that someone was there.

"Get away from here, Quirrell!" Snape spat, shoving the other teacher out of the area.

Snape looked back in the direction that we were for a minute, before someone else came into the room.

"Severus, look what I found," Filch said holding up the broken lantern. "It's still hot, and that means that someone is out of bed!"

The two of them walked away from the corridor that we were in and we slowly backed into another room. This room, which neither of us recognized, appeared to be an unused classroom. It had seating all around the room and a single mirror sitting on one side of the room. Not sure on whether or not Snape and Filch would return to where we had seen them, we stayed in the room for a while. We walked over to the mirror and dropped the cloak.

"Whoa..." Harry said as he looked at the mirror.

"What?" I said as I walked around the room in boredom.

"Come here!" he called me over.

I walked over to him to see what was going on, and then I saw it. This mirror not only showed you your reflection, but something else. Behind Harry and me stood my parents, but when I turned around, they weren't there.

Harry and I looked at each other and then back to our parents in the mirror. They smiled and waved to us as if they were really there.

"What is this?" I whispered, putting my hand against the mirror.

"I have no idea," he whispered back.

"Stay here, I'm going to go get Ron," Harry said when we made it back to the common room.

Harry ran up the steps to go wake up our friend. After we had seen our parents in the mirror the night before, Harry said that he wanted to have Ron see them too.

"Okay, let's go!" Harry said as he returned down the steps, dragging a half-asleep Ron behind him.

"What's going on...?" Ron asked sleepily as Harry threw the cloak over all three of us.

"You'll see," Harry said as we began to move back through the castle.

It took a few minutes to find the room again, but as soon as we closed the door behind us, the cloak was thrown off.

Harry ran over to the mirror and beckoned Ron over to him; I sat down on a chair nearby.

"See?" Harry said pointing to the mirror. "That's my mum and that's my dad," he said pointing at the mirror.

"I only see your reflection Harry," Ron mumbled.

"Fine, step in front of it then."

Ron stepped in front of the mirror and I saw him begin to smile.

"Do you see them now?" Harry asked.

"No...I see myself, I'm Head Boy...and they've just handed me the Quidditch cup!"

"What?" Harry asked looking confused.

"We should probably get out of here," I said standing up and picking up the cloak. "This room is closed off for a reason..."

As we made our way back up to the Gryffindor Tower, I thought to myself. I loved being able to see my parents in that mirror, after all, I had always wanted to know them. But there was just something not right about that mirror. It was not natural to be able to see those things, and I could see my brother becoming attached to the image of our parents.

The following night, Harry insisted that I go back to the room with him.

"Harry, I'm not so sure about all of this..." I said. "It's in that room for a reason - I don't think we're supposed to know about it."

"We aren't supposed to know about a three-headed dog either, but we do," Harry said taking the cloak and throwing it over both of us.

Now knowing the route to get there, we easily made our way to the room. Right when we got in there, Harry threw of the cloak and ran over to the mirror again and smiled.

However, I noticed that we weren't the only ones in the room.

Dumbledore smiled at me as we made eye contact and I couldn't help but smile back at the old man.

"Hello, Mr. and Miss Potter," Dumbledore said looking at both of us.

Harry turned around fast, his eyes wide with shock.

"I knew that you would return, Harry. However, I wasn't so sure about you, Rose," he said eying me. "I'm guessing that you've discovered what this mirror does."

Harry looked at me, trying to figure out himself what the answer was.

"It shows people what they want the most..." I murmured.

"Precisely," Dumbledore smiled at me. "However, I am curious as to why you do not wish to use it."

"Well..." I said slowly. "I think that this kind of thing could be dangerous...as if someone could almost become obsessed with it...kind of like Harry is..."

My brother shot me a look that said clearly that he was not obsessing over the mirror, even though I knew good and well that he was.

"Exactly, Miss Potter," Dumbledore said, his eyes twinkling. "I am happy to see that you have resisted its charm, most people can't say the same..."

The headmaster looked over at the mirror and his face went blank, unreadable.

"I am sorry to tell you, Harry, but the mirror is being moved," he said as Harry looked from the mirror to the headmaster.

"It does not do well to dwell on dreams and forget to live..."

Dumbledore smiled at the two of us and stood up. He began to usher us out of the door, when a question came to mind.

"Professor Dumbledore?" I said, him nodding for me to continue. "What do you see in the mirror?"

He looked down at me, and hesitated to answer.

"I see myself holding a pair of new socks..." he said. "No one can ever have too many of them."

Somehow though, I felt that the headmaster wasn't being honest with us.


	13. Chapter 13

"He's doing what?" Harry asked Oliver in the common room.

"Snape's going to be refereeing the next Quidditch game, so please don't give him another excuse to make us lose the game," Oliver said to Harry as he walked over to sit with some of the other team members.

"Great," Harry said. "Snape's going to make a call on everything!"

"Don't worry Harry," George said from across the room.

"We'll hit him with a bludger if he annoys us too much," Fred said.

"Fred!" Oliver warned from where he was sitting. "This is not a joke!"

"Who said I was joking?" Fred said.

"You shouldn't play, Harry," Ron said. "Look what happened last time!"

"Pretend to break a leg!" Hermione suggested.

"Really break your leg!" Ron said, getting a disapproving look from both Hermione and me.

Suddenly, the Gryffindor common room opened up and someone came hopping in. It was Neville and his legs appeared to be locked together.

"What happened?" I asked watching him hop around.

"Malfoy," Neville grumbled as he focused on not falling over.

"Stay still," I said as I walked over to put the counter curse on him.

"Thanks," he smiled as he moved his legs around once again.

"So, why'd he do that to you?" Harry asked grabbing a Chocolate Frog.

Neville looked down at his feet and mumbled something under his breath.

"What was that?"

"Because he says that I'm a loser and can't do any magic..."

"You're not a loser, Neville," I told him.

"Thanks," he blushed as he sat down in a chair near the fire.

"Yeah," Harry said. "You're worth twelve of him."

"Here," I said tossing Neville a Chocolate Frog.

Then Hermione appeared in the room, her nose buried in a book.

"Hermione, are you honestly still reading?" Ron asked her. "Class doesn't start until tomorrow!"

"I am well aware of that, Ron," she snapped. "I'm trying to find some more about Flamel! You were supposed to do this while I was gone-"

"Hermione, we tried!" I said to her as I plopped down in the couch next to Neville. "We even went in the restricted section, but we nearly got caught."

"I know you all looked...I'm just frustrated," Hermione mumbled as she began to start reading again.

"Do you want this?" Neville said handing over a card a few minutes later.

"Who'd you get?" I grabbed the card and read it.

It was Dumbledore's card, I already had three others of him, so I told Neville that he could keep it and handed it back to him. That's when I remembered something.

"Can I see that for just a moment?" I asked him.

When he handed me the card, I quickly found what I had been looking for.

"That's it!" I said standing up and looking at Harry, Ron, and Hermione.

"What?" Ron asked.

"It mentions on this card that Dumbledore was famous for his 'work in alchemy with his partner, Nicolas Flamel!"

Hermione ran over and grabbed the card to read it quickly. Then she ran up the stairs that led to the girls' dormitories.

"Where is she going?" Ron asked looking at the stairs where she had been moments before.

"No idea..." Harry replied.

I walked back over to Neville, who looked extremely confused as to what was going on, and handed him his card back.

"I'm so stupid!" Hermione said as she returned to the room with a large book in her hands.

"What is-?" Ron began.

Hermione put up a finger as she read in the book.

"Of course!" Hermione said pointing at the page. "Nicolas Flamel is the only known maker of the Philosopher's Stone!"

"The what?" I said walking over to Hermione.

"The Philosopher's Stone!" Hermione repeated. "It is known to transform any metal into pure gold and produce the Elixir of Life, which makes the drinker immortal! It says that the only Stone in existence belongs to Nicolas Flamel, who just turned six-hundred and sixty-fifth birthday!"

We all looked to each other, realization on each one of our faces.

"So that's what the dog must be guarding!" I said. "Harry, remember when we went to Gringotts before the start of the term? Hagrid picked something small up from one of the vaults!"

"It must have been the stone!" he said.

"No wonder Snape wants the stone!" Ron said.

I shot Ron a look, still not believing that Snape was actually trying to steal anything from Flamel, Dumbledore, or Hogwarts.

"I think I'm going to play the Quidditch game..." Harry said after a few moments. "I don't want Snape thinking that he's gotten to me..."

-

"He's everywhere!" Harry said to me as we made our way to Potions class, Ron trailing behind us. "It's like he's following me!"

"I really think that, you're being paranoid," I said looking at my brother.

"Why is it that you always stick up for him?" Harry asked me, looking slightly amused. "Why can't you see that he's not the good guy?"

"Snape just seems like he's in a bad mood all the time, I don't think that he's trying to kill anyone..."

We walked into the classroom, almost everyone was there. Hermione was already seated, she always got there before us, along with Neville, Malfoy, and some other Slytherins.

I took my normal seat next to Neville and received a look from Malfoy across the room.

"Can I help you?" I said after a moment.

"Oh nothing, Potter," Malfoy spat. "I was just-"

Snape burst in through the door, shutting Malfoy up immediately.

"Today you will brew a cure for boils, you may begin..." Snape said waving his wand to put the directions on the board.

"Remember to turn off the fire before you put the porcupine needles in," I whispered to Neville who nodded.

I made my potion as usual, and made sure to watch Neville in the process. This had become a normal thing because he normally did mess up and we ended up losing points. I tried to watch him as closely as possible because normally I looked away just as he messed up. Today, however, he always glanced at me for approval before he did anything.

"Your time is up," Snape said as he stood up from his desk at the end of class.

He began to walk around the room, checking everyone's cauldron as usual. Most people, because this was a fairly new potion, had made little errors that made the potion completely unacceptable in Snape's eyes.

"Weasley," Snape sneered. "You were supposed to add three porcupine needles, not four. Five points from Gryffindor..."

"Potter, you obviously kept your potion under the fire entirely too long...another five points."

After Snape had passed them, the two of them looked back at me, both obviously anger at the teacher.

"Mr. Longbottom..." Snape said as he stood over Neville's potion, as if waiting to see a catastrophe.

Neville looked as though he was shaking, after all, it was a common theme for him to lose points in Potions class.

"Miss Potter, what have I said about helping Longbottom?" Snape said, still observing Neville's potion.

"I was just-" I started.

"Helping him?" Snape said as he walked over to my cauldron. "I've told you, Longbottom needs to learn to do these things by himself-"

"How is he actually supposed to learn anything when he doesn't get any help?" I cut in.

"Detention," Snape said. "Don't interrupt me in class, Miss Potter. I expect you in my office, tomorrow night..."

He walked off, still not looking at me as he passed.

After a few moments, Neville spoke up.

"Oh my gosh," he whispered to me.

"What?" I looked over at him.

"I didn't lose any points," he smiled over at me. "Thanks!"

"Anytime, Neville..."

-

Ron, Hermione, Neville, and I took our seats in the stands, looking out at the field as the game was about to begin.

"Well, at least you get to watch the game," Ron said, thinking about my detention.

"Yeah," I said looking around at the stands. "Look! Dumbledore is here!"

"Wow! He doesn't normally come to the games!" Ron said.

Then the teams began to walk out onto the field. Today, Hufflepuff and Gryffindor came onto the field, with Snape trailing behind them.

"He looks pissed," Ron said.

I looked at the Potions master, and couldn't help but notice the same thing.

"There they go-OUCH!" Ron said as he was poked in the back.

I turned around to see Malfoy, Crabbe, and Goyle sitting behind us.

"Sorry, Weasley, I didn't see you there," he said, an evil grin going across his face. "I wonder if Potter is going to fall off his broom today...I think that calls for a bet! Anyone want to go against me, how about you, Weasley?"

I tried my best to ignore Malfoy, but the look I saw on Ron's face said that he was having difficulty paying attention to the game.

"You know how the Gryffindor team picks their players, Goyle?" Malfoy said, speaking intentionally loud. "They only choose the pathetic ones. You see, there's Potter, who has no parents, then you have the Weasleys, who have no money - hey Longbottom, you should be on the team, you don't have any brains!"

Crabbe and Goyle burst into laughter, Ron and Neville went bright red.

"I'm worth twelve of you, Malfoy..." Neville muttered.

Malfoy, Crabbe, and Goyle laughed even more.

"You tell him, Neville," Ron said, still looking at the game.

I nudged him and smiled, proud that he stood up for himself, and he smiled back, still red in the face.

"If brains were gold, you'd be poorer than Weasley, and that's pathetic!" Malfoy sneered at Neville.

"Say one more thing Malfoy, I swear!" Ron warned.

Hermione shot him a look, not wanting a fight to start.

Then, suddenly, Harry dove towards the ground towards the Snitch.

"Look! Potter must have found some gold, Weasley, you're in luck!" Malfoy laughed.

That's when Ron snapped. He turned around and jumped on Malfoy, wrestling with him. Before you knew it, Neville had joined in and was trying to take on both Crabbe and Goyle.

"Guys!" I yelled at the people fighting behind me.

I stood up when Crabbe and Goyle pushed Neville down. They went to grab him up again, when I pulled out my wand and pointed at them. Then I was pushed to the ground by some Slytherin girl, who I recognized as Pansy Parkinson.

"Oh, hell no!" I said, standing up again.

I put my wand in my jacket and looked at the girl. I walked slowly up to her and smiled in her face. She looked confused for a moment, but was cut off when I punched her dead in the face and knocked her to the ground. I was pushed forward slightly when Crabbe bumped into me because Neville had punched him also, knocking him backwards.

"HE'S CAUGHT THE SNITCH!" Hermione shrieked as the rest of the crowd began to cheer.

Everyone that was fighting stopped and looked back at the field.

"We won!" Ron cheered through a bloody nose.

I turned to see that Neville was knocked out on the ground, but I also noticed that both Crabbe and Goyle had black eyes blossoming on their faces.


	14. Chapter 14

"So, you're saying that Snape was trying to figure out how to get past the three-headed dog from Quirrell?" Ron asked Harry.

"That's what I heard in the forest last night," Harry said.

Apparently, Harry had followed Snape and Quirrell into the Forbidden Forest just after the game the night before and overheard them talking about the Stone.

"So, in other words, the stone is safe unless Quirrell blabs about how to get past the dog?" Hermione asked.

Harry nodded and started pacing around the empty common room.

"In that case, the stone is going to be gone before next week!" Ron said.

"Rose...you're not saying anything," Hermione said.

"Yeah, that's probably because she doesn't believe us," Ron said. "Snape's the good guy, right?"

I shot Ron a look, and he backed off.

"There's just something not right," I said.

"What's not right?" Ron asked. "Snape found the most pathetic teacher in the bunch to get the secret out of him, seems like something that he would do."

"No," I said, glaring at Ron. "It's just that...before Christmas, I ran into the two of them in the corridor..."

"What?" Harry said, as his pacing stopped. "What happened?"

"Well," I started. "I was walking in the hallway, when I ran into Quirrell. He was acting rather strange and started to corner me. Then, from out of nowhere, Snape came in and started yelling at Quirrell. When Quirrell left, Snape started asking whether or not he hurt me or something and then told me not to wander the hallways anymore."

Harry and Ron looked at each other.

"He probably didn't want you in the hallways while he interrogated Quirrell," Ron said. "Snape probably thought that he might tell you what he was doing to him!"

I rolled my eyes, "This is unbelievable..."

I walked over to a chair and sat down in it, staring into the fire. Everyone else was freaking out about how Snape was after the Stone and how they had no doubt about it. I had automatically regretted telling them about what happened during Christmas because they took what I said and twisted it into what they wanted to believe.

-

I walked into the Potions room that night for my detention, and saw that I was the only one there other than my teacher.

"Good evening, Miss Potter," Snape muttered from his desk, not lifting his head from the papers he was grading.

"What am I doing tonight, Professor?" I asked him.

"You will be writing lines for me," he said handing me a piece of parchment.

"How many?" I asked him.

"Just until I say you are finished..." he murmured. "I want you to write, 'I will not talk back to my teacher'..."

I took the parchment from him and sat at the nearest desk. I took out my quill and ink and began writing. I couldn't help but notice that every now and then he would glance up at me, but as soon as I looked back, he would go right back to grading.

"That will be all, Miss Potter," Snape said.

I stood up and handed him the parchment that had the many lines that I had managed to write.

"I hope that you learned something..." he said.

"I still don't see what I did wrong, sir," I said politely. "I was just trying to help Neville, because, I'm sure you've noticed, he isn't exactly the greatest in your class."

"I am well aware of that," he said. "However, the boy needs to learn how to do the work, or at least stick up for himself instead of allowing some girl to do that for him."

"I understand, Professor," I responded. "I just hope that you can go a little easier on him..."

He looked up slowly from his work, and our eyes met for a moment and his dark eyes began to soften slightly.

"I could try," he murmured softly.

"Thank you," I said. "Goodnight, Professor Snape."

"Goodnight, Li-" he stopped himself quickly, his eyes widening.

"What?" I asked him, not quite understanding what he had said.

"I said goodnight, Miss Potter," he said, going slightly pale.

I nodded slowly as I left the room, still confused as to what had just happened.

-

"Honestly, Hermione," Ron said. "The exams are so far away, why even bother studying now?"

"Because Ron, we have to pass in order to come back next year!" Hermione said as she looked through all her notes.

We were in the library, looking through random books that Hermione had given us to prepare for the exams that were being given at the end of the year.

"This is ridiculous..." Harry muttered to me.

I nodded in agreement, but tried my best to keep looking at the book that I had in front of me.

"Hagrid?" Harry said. "What are you doing in here?"

I looked up from my book and saw Hagrid standing there with a book in his hands, trying to hide it.

"What are you doing with a book on dragons?" I asked.

"Never mind that..." he muttered, looking embarrassed that he didn't hide the book fast enough. "You all aren't trying to find out more about Nicolas Flamel are you?"

"Oh, we already know all about him," Ron said proudly. "We know that he made the Philosopher's St-"

"HEY!" Hagrid said, trying to shut Ron up. "Forget about all that, yer not supposed ter know it. Just...come by my hut later, okay?"

We all nodded as he exited the library.

-

"So, tell us what all is guarding the stone," Ron said to Hagrid. "We know that it can't be just the dog."

"Yer not supposed to know about that," Hagrid said in a warning tone.

"Come on Hagrid," I said. "There's no point in hiding it, we already know most of it."

Hagrid looked around for a moment, as if he was trying to see if anyone else was listening in.

"Fine," Hagrid said. "All I know is that some of the teachers put some enchantments around it..."

"Like who?" Hermione asked.

"Professor McGonagall, Professor Flitwick, Professor Sprout, Professor Quirrell, Professor Dumbledore, and Professor Snape."

"Snape?" Ron asked. "He's protecting the Stone?"

"Didn't I already tell ya that?"

"Yes!" I said to him. "But everyone refuses to believe that Snape is innocent."

"Come off it, Rose!" Ron snapped.

"She's right!" Hagrid said in my defense. "Yer always blamin' him fer everything."

Suddenly, we heard a noise coming from the fireplace.

"What is that, Hagrid?" Harry said, slowly moving towards the fireplace.

"It's a dragon's egg, isn't it Hagrid?" Hermione asked as she looked at the pot over the fire.

Hagrid nodded as he went to grab some oven mitts and started walking towards the pot in the fire.

"No wonder it's so hot in here..." Ron said.

"Hagrid..." I said. "You do realize that you live in a wooden house, right? The place could burn down!"

"It's not going to burn! The dragon's only a baby!" he said as he started moving the egg around.

"Wait, where did you get a dragon's egg anyway?" Ron asked.

"Oh, some guy at the pub gave it to me, seemed happy to be done with the thing."

"It's illegal to own a dragon, Hagrid!" Hermione said nervously.

"Don't worry about it, Hermione. I know what I'm doing!"

We all looked at each other, knowing that it was only a matter of time before he was caught.

-

"That is why you must handle this type of plant with caution," Professor Sprout said towards the end of Herbology.

Harry, Ron, Hermione, and I, however, were not too concerned about the new kind of plant that the teacher was introducing to us. We were too concerned that Hagrid was going to get caught, after all, it was a strong possibility.

"They're fascinating, aren't they?" Neville said smiling up at the plant.

I smiled back at him, even though I wasn't even positive what the plant was even supposed to be, not to mention what it does.

Once the class had ended, we all decided that it would be best to check up on Hagrid to make sure that everything was okay in his hut.

"It's nearly hatched!" Hagrid said with a huge smile on his face.

We all looked at the egg, which was completely black and was currently falling to little pieces. Within the next few minutes, the egg burst open revealing a small dragon that was inside of it.

"Isn't he beautiful?" Hagrid asked us, practically crying.

"Sure Hagrid..." I mumbled, watching as the dragon spit fire as it sneezed.

Suddenly, Hagrid grew extremely pale as he looked out of the window.

"What is it?" I asked.

"It's Malfoy!" Harry said pointing out of the window. "He's seen the dragon!"


	15. Chapter 15

"Hagrid, we have to get rid of that dragon," I told him after Malfoy had run out of sight.

"I can't get rid of Norbert!" Hagrid said, looking as though he would burst into tears.

I glanced at everyone else, hoping I could get some kind of support. There was no way that the dragon could stay at Hogwarts if Malfoy knew about it.

"Rose's right," Ron spoke up. "Malfoy is probably going to turn you in, Hagrid."

"I can't just let him go!" Hagrid said. "He's just a baby!"

"Well, we could send him to my brother, Charlie," Ron suggested. "He takes care of all kinds of dragons in Romania."

"That's fantastic!" Hermione smiled. "That way he can be with his own kind!"

Hagrid frowned and looked back at the small dragon. Knowing that we were right, Hagrid began to sob.

"B-but he's so s-small! What if the other ones eat him!"

"They aren't going to eat him, Hagrid!" Ron said.

After we left Hagrid's house, we decided that it was best that Ron send Charlie a letter telling him about the situation.

We found it extraordinarily odd that Malfoy hadn't turned us in immediately. We figured that he might use it as blackmail or that he might be waiting for the "right" moment to turn us in.

Within a few days time, Charlie replied to Ron's letter about the dragon. He said that he would be happy to take it and told us that Norbert would be perfectly safe with the other dragons in the area. We told Hagrid all about it, which he responded with tears. However, Hagrid decided that it was best that Norbert be sent away to live amongst other dragons. It was decided that we would sneak Norbert off to the Owlery on Saturday night where he couldn't be seen.

However, we ran into a problem after Ron's hand was bitten by Norbert and he was forced to go to Madam Pomfrey when the bite began to swell until it became twice the size of what it usually was. Fortunately, Ron was able to convince her that he was bitten by a dog.

"It's okay, Ron," Hermione said. "It'll all be over on Saturday night..."

"Bloody hell," Ron said, sitting up quickly.

"What is it?" I asked him, startled by his outburst.

"The note - it's gone!" Ron exclaimed. "The one from Charlie! Malfoy came in here asking for one of my books and it was  
the one that had the note in it! He's going to know about everything!"

"Ron, we have the invisibility cloak," I said to him. "Malfoy will never find us."

"We can't change the plan anyway," Harry said. "We already told Charlie that we would send him on Saturday."

Saturday finally came and Norbert appeared to be a lot bigger than when we last saw him. Hagrid had a cage all prepared for him. However, Ron could not come with us because he had to stay with Madam Pomfrey.

"I put some brandy in there," he cried. "And a teddy bear so he don't get lonely."

"It's going to be fine, Hagrid," Harry reassured their friend.

"Yeah..." he sobbed. "I'm just gonna miss 'im!"

After Hagrid said his goodbyes to the dragon, we threw the invisibility cloak over ourselves, which proved to be rather difficult considering the number of us, and were off to the Owlery.

We had almost made it up to the tower, when we were stopped at the sight of Professor McGonagall. She was in her nightgown and was pulling Malfoy along by the ear.

"Detention, Mr. Malfoy!" she growled. "And twenty points from Slytherin!"

"But, Professor," Malfoy begged her. "The Potters are coming by here, I swear it! They have a dragon!"

"What is this nonsense!" McGonagall said. "Just come with me."

After they had moved along, we continued to make our way to the Owlery. When we got up there, we met four people on broomsticks awaiting our arrival. We waved them off as they took Norbert off to Romania.

We walked out of the Owlery practically glowing. The dragon was finally gone, Hagrid wasn't going to be in any trouble, and Malfoy had detention. Nothing went wrong!

"Well, well, well," Filch said coming up behind us. "Look what we have here."

Filch smiled from ear to ear, catching us in the act.

We had left the cloak in the Owlery...

Filch brought us to McGonagall's office. However, she wasn't there at the moment, so we at least had a little bit of time to come up with some kind of excuse for themselves.

Moments later, however, my mind went blank when I saw her come into the room. Behind her was Neville.

"Rose! Harry!" Neville shouted. "I'm sorry! I was trying to find you two. I heard Malfoy telling people that you were trying to get rid of a dra-"

Neville stopped in his tracks when he saw each one of us practically glaring into his very soul in attempt to make him stop talking.

"So, I see what we have here!" McGonagall fumed. "You were trying to get Mr. Malfoy in trouble by telling him some ridiculous story about a dragon and somehow, Mr. Longbottom overheard the conversation and was trying to help you. Feel good about that, do you?"

I looked at Neville, feeling terrible as I watched his face fall with what he heard. I wanted to tell him that what she had said wasn't true, but I couldn't without revealing what had really happened.

"Each one of you will receive detention!" McGonagall said angrily. "And fifty points will be taken from Gryffindor."

We all gasped, knowing that those points would take us out of the lead.

"Fifty points each!" she said.

"But, Professor-" Harry started.

"I don't want to here it," she cut him off. "Now, off to bed all of you!"

When we got back to the common room, I saw noticed that Neville was looking extremely upset as he sat down in an armchair.

Harry went up to his bed, not wanting to talk about what just happened.

"Neville," I said. "Listen, what she said wasn't true."

He glanced over at me, his eyes were filled with tears, and he shook his head.

"I'm serious, Neville," I told him. "It was a lie! We really were trying to get rid of that dragon! You would have helped us a lot if you could have found us."

He looked down at the ground in shame.

"I'm sorry that we got you in trouble," I said sitting down next to him.

"Well..." he mumbled, sounding miserable. "At least I know that it wasn't completely worthless...it's just that people already hate me because I lose points all the time. Now, I've lost so many points that no one will ever talk to me again."

"Neville, people won't hate you, and they don't now anyway," I told him.

"Yeah, okay," he said with sarcasm. "I lose points all the time and I've noticed the other Gryffindors getting annoyed with me..."

"Don't worry about what other people think," I told him, putting an arm around him. "I'm sure that in a week, no one will even remember this."

He smiled, but I could still see tears in his eyes.

"Besides," I said. "You could blame me if you want to, tell people that I forced to go with us."

He laughed, "You're my best friend, I wouldn't do that to you."

-

The next morning, people noticed immediately that the points had dropped. They were also informed who lost the points. So, in other words, we were shunned from our house for a while.

"Oh, they'll forget about it!" Ron said as a group of Gryffindors walked by glaring at us.

"Sure..." I said when I received a death glare from a fourth year.

"This is terrible..." Neville said, walking up to me with a large boil on his face.

"What happened?" I asked looking at the boil.

"Well..." he said. "One of the fifth years came over to me and did some spell on me and...this is what happened."

I frowned, but couldn't help but stare at the boil.

"Well, it looks rather...dashing on you, Neville," I laughed.

"Very funny," he said seriously, but couldn't help but smile.

Harry walked over to Ron, Hermione, Neville, and me. He apparently had attempted to resign from the Quidditch team, thinking that they wouldn't want him to be a part of it anymore.

"He told me that it wouldn't do any good...is that a boil?" Harry said looking over at Neville.

"Some fifth year did that because of the whole point-loss thing..." I mumbled.

"You should probably have that looked at..." Harry said looking half-concerned, half-repulsed.

That night we had to go to detention - the second day in a row that I had received detention. Filch led Harry, Neville, Malfoy, and me outside of the castle.

"Where are we going?" Malfoy asked Filch.

"You'll see that in a moment boy," Filch said.

We walked a little further and then I caught sight of Hagrid.

"Is that you Filch?" He asked. "Hurry up, we need to head out into the forest soon."

"The forest?" Harry asked nervously. "As in the Forbidden Forest?"

"That would be the one," Filch said with an evil grin.

Neville walked up beside me, looking incredibly scared.

"We can't go into the forest," Malfoy said. "Aren't there...werewolves or something in there."

"There's more than that in there boy," Filch said. "You'll be lucky if you find just that."

Neville's eyes widened and he went very pale. However, he wasn't the only one. Malfoy stopped walking immediately, his face as white as the moon.

"You're kidding, right?" Malfoy asked.

"I wish I was," Filch chuckled evilly.

Hagrid walked over to us, Fang next to him, and was carrying a large crossbow.

"Thanks Filch, I'll take 'em from here."

Filch turned around on the spot and made his way back to the castle.

"Okay, we're gonna go into the forest 'n-" Hagrid started.

"I'm not going into that forest," Malfoy interrupted.

"You will be if ya want ter stay at Hogwarts," Hagrid said.

Malfoy frowned, but didn't respond.

Hagrid motioned for us to follow him to the edge of the forest and held up his light for us to see. Right in front of us was a large pool of silvery liquid.

"See that," Hagrid said. "That's unicorn blood. Now, we're gonna try 'n find the poor thing. I found a trail of blood in the forest, so we should be able ter follow it."

"What if something finds us first?" Malfoy asked, sounding like he was panicking.

"No one will bother ya as long as yer here with Fang and me," Hagrid said.

"Then I want Fang," Malfoy said.

"Fine, but ya should know that he's a bloody coward..." Hagrid said handing over Fang's leash.

We started to walk into the forest, but I noticed that someone wasn't walking. Neville stood at the edge of the forest, pale and with eyes the size of dinner plates.

"It's okay, Neville," I told him. "Come on."

He looked slightly hesitant and still terrified, but he walked on. We followed Hagrid into the depths of the forest, still following the silver blood. Neville, beside me, was shaking a lot and jumping at just about any noise that was made.

I held out my hand to him, hoping that maybe he would calm down. He smiled nervously and grabbed my hand. We walked through the forest further, Neville's grip on my hand tightening with every noise, but he seemed to be a little calmer.

"Okay, we're going to have to split up," Hagrid said as the trail split into two paths.

Hagrid looked around at all of us, noticing that Neville was hanging on to me for dear life and then told us where to go.

He decided that it was best that Draco, Neville, and I went one direction, while Harry and himself go the other.

"If you run into anything, just send some sparks up into the sky, okay?" Hagrid told me.

When we split up, I noticed that Malfoy was just as nervous as Neville judging by the way he freaked out anytime he heard a noise.

"This is ridiculous," Draco said. "If my father knew that I was-"

"Stop being such a little girl, Draco," I told him,

Malfoy shot me a look, but didn't say anything. Suddenly, something cracked in the woods and Malfoy tripped backwards. Neville gripped onto my hand, but relaxed when he noticed that Malfoy had fallen.

We both looked at each other and started laughing quietly.

"Think that's funny, do you?" Malfoy spat, his face starting to grow pink as he stood up.

"Well, I'll go look to see what it was..." he continued.

We stood there in silence for a moment after Malfoy had left.

Suddenly, I felt someone jump up behind me and grab me by the shoulders. Neville jumped forward, pulling me with him and with his wand, he shot red sparks up into the air. When we turned around, I saw that it was Malfoy with Fang and he was laughing.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" I growled and dropped Neville's hand.

I walked over to Malfoy at a fast pace and shoved him backwards.

"That wasn't funny!" I yelled at him.

Suddenly, Hagrid came running over to us.

"What happened?" he said frantically.

"Malfoy jumped out behind us and Neville thought that it was something else," I told him.

Hagrid glared at him and then motioned for us to follow him. We made our way over to the other group and Hagrid explained what happened.

"Harry, you go with them, Neville stay here with me," Hagrid said.

Harry, Draco, and I returned to the trail that we had been following earlier.

After a few minutes of following the trail, we found something.

"Look," Harry said.

In front of us sat a large, white unicorn and it was lying on the ground. It was dead. Suddenly, from out of the bushes, a figure emerged. It was dressed in a large, black cloak and it crawled over towards the animal. The man bent over in front of the unicorn and began to drink its blood.

"AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!" Malfoy screamed and began to run in the other direction along with Fang.

The figure rose its head, which the hood concealed, and appeared to look in our direction.

Suddenly, my scar felt as though it was on fire. Both Harry and I fell to the ground, trying to move backwards in a sorry attempt to get ourselves away from the figure. Our scars hurt so badly that we were practically blinded by pain.

The figure started to move towards us, and I figured that moments from now we would both be dead.

Then, suddenly, someone came out of nowhere and ran at the figure.


	16. Chapter 16

"Are you two all right?" the half-man, half-horse asked us.

I looked up at the creature. I had never seen one of these before, but I did recall Hermione ranting to me about this  
specific type of person. They were called centaurs.

"Yes," we said in unison as the centaur helped us up to our feet.

Then he looked at our foreheads, seeing the scars on them, he seemed to realize something.

"You must be the Potters," he said to us. "I must get you two back to Hagrid, the forest is not a safe place. Would you mind getting on my back so I may take you to your destination?"

We both nodded as we climbed onto the centaur's back.

"My name is Firenze," he told us as we began to move through the forest.

"What was wrong with that man?" Harry asked Firenze.

"Why was he drinking unicorn blood?" I added.  
"It's a terrible thing to drink a unicorn's blood, only someone who had nothing to lose and everything to gain would do such a monstrous thing," he explained as he galloped through the forest. "It will keep you alive even if you are a second from death, but at a terrible cost. You will live a cursed life from the moment the blood touches your lips."

"Why would anyone do that?" I asked.

"Who would be that desperate?" Harry asked.

"Someone who is waiting for something else to drink...something that will keep them alive. Do you realize what is being hidden inside the castle at this very moment?"

"The Philosopher's Stone!" Harry and I said together.

"But who would want to-" Harry started.

"Do you not know of anyone is has been trying to come back to power for many years?"

"Do you mean...Vold-" I started.

"There ya are!" Hagrid's voice interrupted us. "Ya okay then you two?"

The rest of the group, including Malfoy, was behind Hagrid, looking for us apparently. We nodded in answer to his question as we got off of the centaur's back.

"The unicorn is over there, Hagrid," Harry said.

"It's dead though," I added.

We walked back over to the unicorn to show him where it was and then we began to leave the forest.

-

Harry, Ron, Hermione, and I were in the common room that night. We had just told them what happened in the forest and Harry was now pacing back in forth while the rest of us sat.

"Snape wants the Stone for Voldemort," Harry said. "He's trying to bring him back."

I was about to say something, but Hermione beat me to it.

"How do you know it's Snape, Harry?" she asked him.

"Who else could it be, Hermione?" he said throwing his hands up into the air. "Who else tried to get passed Fluffy? Rose already told us that he made her stay out of the hallways at night! He obviously was about to be caught in the act and-"

"That isn't what happened!" I yelled. "How many times do I have to say it? Quirrell had me corned! Why is everyone so keen that it's Snape? It could be anyone."

"Why are you against the idea that it is Snape, Rose?" Harry asked. "If it's not him, who do you think it is?"

"I don't know, Harry!" I said, him giving me a look. "Neither do you! You don't have any evidence!"

"Neither do you!" Ron joined in.

"No one has evidence!" Hermione said. "That is why we must all keep every option open."

"Either way," I said. "Voldemort is trying to get to the stone, that's the real problem here."

"Is everyone forgetting something?" Hermione asked us all. "Who is the one person that You-Know-Who ever feared? Dumbledore! As long as he's here, the stone is safe, and so is everyone else."

The following morning, just before the exams, Harry told me that he found something under his pillows the following morning. It was the cloak with a note that read, Just in case. But, we couldn't talk very long because the exams were about to start.

In our first exam, History of Magic, we had to take a long test on all of the things that we had learned that year. We were also given Anti-Cheating quills as a precaution. Considering the amount of times I fell asleep in Professor Binns classroom, I thought I did fairly well.

Next, we had our Charms exam. For this one, we had to successfully make a pineapple tap dance across the table. Luckily, I managed to do this spell correctly on my first attempt. However, I did notice that others were not as successful. I saw Seamus on the other side of the room make the pineapple fly through the ceiling. After a few moments, the pineapple came back into the room and splattered all over Professor Flitwick's head.

In our Transfiguration exam, we had to make a mouse turn into a tissue box. If you made the box pretty, then you gained points, but if a single whisker or tail was found on the box, you lost points. I managed to turn my mouse into a flowery little box, Ron however, managed to turn his mouse into a box that had a large tail growing out of the back.

Our final exam was in Potions. In this exam, Snape made us create a Forgetfulness Potion without the instructions. I had managed to memorize most of the potions that we made in class thanks to Neville who I had to watch carefully. Unfortunately, I was one of very few in the class that had remembered everything. Even though I managed to correctly make the potion, I had a distraction to deal with too. My scar had been burning all day, making it hard to concentrate. With every exam that we were given, the pain increased and I noticed from time to time that Harry too was in pain when he kept rubbing his scar.

After the exams, both of our scars continued to burn as we sat in the common room.

"Why won't my scar stop hurting?" Harry asked, still rubbing it.

"Go to Madam Pomfrey," Hermione said.

"No...I think it might be a warning about something..." I said.

Then, suddenly, Harry jumped to his feet.

"We have to go see Hagrid!" he said.

"What? Why?" I asked, standing up too.

Then Harry started walking out of the door at a fast pace. We all walked quickly after him, trying to catch up.

"Don't you think that it's strange that the one thing that Hagrid wants more than anything in the world is a dragon," he said as we made our way out of the castle. "And it just so happens that someone in a pub has one with him?"

"Well...yeah," Ron said. "So what?"

"What does that matter-?" Hermione said.

"They wanted something from Hagrid!" I realized. "They knew that he was one of the only people that would know this, so they were trying to get information out of him!"

"Exactly!" he said right before we made it to Hagrid's hut.

"Hullo!" Hagrid said smiling. "Finished with yer exams, are ya?"

"Yeah," Ron said. "They were-"

"Hagrid, this is important, we're in a hurry," Harry said quickly. "What did that man look like that gave you the egg?"

"I'm not sure..." Hagrid said. "He kept a cloak on..."

"What did he talk to you about?" I asked. "Anything about Hogwarts?"

"Yeah...a little bit," he told us. "He was askin' what kind of creatures that I look after...so I told 'im. I don't remember that much 'cause he kept buyin' me drinks...but I did tell him that I had always wanted a dragon. He told me that he would give me the egg, but he wanted ter be sure that I could handle it. So I told him about Fluffy-"

"Did he seem interested in Fluffy?" Harry asked.

"'Course he was!" he said. "Who wouldn't be interested in a three-headed dog? He wanted to know how I managed ter calm 'im down if he got angry. I told him that it was easy, all ya have ter do is play a little music and he would go off ter sleep-"

Hermione and Ron finally understood what was going on. Hagrid had told some unknown person how to get passed Fluffy.

"I shouldn't have told ya that," Hagrid said, looking horrified with himself.

We didn't hear anything else that he said because we were already running back to the castle.

"We've got to get to Dumbledore! That person under the cloak was probably Snape or Voldemort! Hagrid could have told them how to get to the stone!" Harry said frantically.

I ignored that he was back to blaming Snape, and kept moving.

"Where is Dumbledore's office?" I asked everyone.

"What are you four doing inside?" Professor McGonagall asked.

"We need to see Professor Dumbledore!" we all said at once.

"Why?" she asked, raising an eyebrow.

We all looked at each other, knowing that we shouldn't let her know what we were doing.

"Well, whatever it is, it'll have to wait," she said. "Professor Dumbledore left the castle just ten minutes ago."

"He's gone?" Harry and I said together.

"He received an owl from the Ministry," she said. "He had to leave immediately."

"Look, it's about the Philosopher's Stone-" Harry started.

McGonagall looked shocked.

"How do you know about that?" she asked.

"Never mind that, Professor," he said. "W know that Sna-"

"SOMEONE is after the Stone, Professor!" I cut in. "We think that they are going to steal it soon."

"Professor Dumbledore will be back tomorrow," she said. "I can assure you that the Stone will be safe. It's well protected, I assure you."

"But-" Harry said.

"I don't want to hear it, Potter," she said. "Now go back outside."

We didn't go back outside though. It just dawned on me that if the Stone was to be stolen, it would be tonight. The thief would have no better opportunity than to take it while Dumbledore was far away from the castle.

"He's going to do it tonight, Snape-" he said, me rolling my eyes, "is going to go through the trapdoor tonight! This is the best time for him to-"

"Good afternoon..." Snape said from behind Harry and me.

We spun around to see the Potions Master standing directly behind us, appearing to have just arrived. I silently hoped that he hadn't heard what my brother had just said.

"Now, what are you all doing out here on a beautiful day like this?" he asked darkly. "If you continue to wander the hallways, someone might get the idea that you are up to something."

We all remained silent and began to go towards the door leading outside.

"By the way," Snape said to Harry and me. "If I catch either of you in the hallways during the night, I will be forced to report you both."

He glared at Harry for a moment, but flinched once again when he looked my way. He paused for a moment and then walked in the other direction. Once he was gone, we left building and began to plan outside.

"So, this is what we have to do," Harry said. "Someone is going to have to stay back to keep up with Snape while the others go up to Fluffy, agreed?"

We all nodded in agreement.

"So, I think that it's best if Hermione stays back while the rest of us go to the third floor," Ron said.

"Why me?" Hermione asked.

"Because, you can say that you wanted to ask Flitwick a question about the exam or something."

"Fine," Hermione said. "Can Rose come with me though?"

"Why?" I asked.

"Because, if it doesn't work, maybe you could come up with something about Potions...I don't know!"

"Fine," I said.

Then we went back into the castle and went our separate ways. After a couple of minutes we ended up in front of the teacher's room and ran into Snape himself.

"What are you two doing?" Snape asked.

"Well...you see...I had this question for Professor Flitwick and-" Hermione said nervously.

"He isn't here..." Snape said. "I believe that he is in his classroom."

"Oh, well...um...I just-"

"I have a question about the exam, Professor," I interrupted Hermione, knowing that she wasn't going anywhere with what she was saying.

Snape looked over to me, raising an eyebrow.

"What would that be?" he asked.

"After you add the two Valerian Sprigs, you stir it three times clockwise, right?" I asked, knowing that it was right before I even said it.

"That would be correct," he said.

Hermione stared at me, as if begging me to stall him even more.

"And you crush four Mistletoe Berries into a medium-fine powder and add two pinched to the cauldron, right?"

"Miss Potter, I watched you make the potion," he said. "You made it correctly, so you have nothing to worry about."

"Oh..." I said, realizing that he knew I was just wasting time. "Thank you..."

He nodded at me, looking almost amused, and then turned his attention back to Hermione.

"I will go fetch Professor Flitwick for you..." he said and began to walk off. "Stay here..."

After he had left, Hermione turned back to me.

"What are we going to do?" she panicked.

"Well, when he returns with Flitwick, maybe I could stall him more."

Unfortunately, Snape did not come back with Flitwick. The teacher came alone and after Hermione came up with some question to ask him so we didn't seem like fools, we ran to find Harry and Ron. We found them walking back in our direction though.

"What happened?" I asked.

"McGonagall found us and was furious," Ron said.

We told them what happened with us and how we had no idea where Snape had run off to.

"So, that's it..." Harry said.

I looked at him, knowing what he was planning on doing.

"What?" Ron asked.

"I'm going there tonight, I'm going to try to get to the Stone before Snape gets to it."

"Harry, you'll get expelled it McGonagall catches you!" Hermione said.

"I don't care!" Harry said. "There is no way that I am just going to allow Voldemort to get to the Stone! That would mean  
that he would come back!"

He looked over to me, silently asking me if I was going to join him. I nodded.

"We'll have to bring the cloak," he said only to me.

"Will it cover all four of us?" Ron asked.

"What?" Harry asked them.

"Oh, come on," Ron said. "You both know that we wouldn't just let you two go in there without us."


	17. Chapter 17

That night, we decided that we would stay in the common room until everyone went to bed. It took a while for the room to clear, but when it did, we waited a few minutes longer, just to make sure.

"You should probably go get the cloak now," Ron said as he stood up.

We all stood at the door leading to the dormitories waiting for Harry to return with the cloak. When he came back down, he pulled out a flute.

"We'll use this to get him to sleep so-" Harry explained, but was interrupted.

"What are you all doing?" a voice came from the corner of the room.

Neville stood up from an armchair, holding Trevor in his hands, and looked as us.

"Nothing, Neville, nothing!" Harry lied.

Then he noticed the cloak that Harry had hidden behind his back.

"You're going out again, aren't you?" Neville said.

"No, of course not," Hermione lied. "Why don't you just go on up to bed?"

"No, I won't let you go," he said, looking nervous. "You'll get Gryffindor into more trouble!"

"Neville, please, this is important!" I said, noticing how much time that we were wasting.

"Just move, Neville! We have to go!" Ron said.

"I won't let you go, I-I'll fight you," he said desperately.

I pulled out my wand and pointed it at Neville.

"I'm sorry about this, Neville," I said. "Petrificus Totalus!"

Suddenly his whole body went rigid and he fell to the ground.

"What did you do to him?" Harry asked.

"It's a fully body bind," I said. "Oh, I'm so sorry Neville! We'll explain later, I promise! Just please forgive me."

Then we all got underneath the cloak, made sure that our feet didn't show, and left the room. We managed to make it to the third floor without running into anyone, but Peeves. Ron, thinking fast, made his voice sound like the Bloody Baron and managed to make him get out of our way.

Finally, we made it to the room that Fluffy was in. When we opened the door, the dog started to growl and Harry pulled out his flute. As soon as the music started, the dog fell right to sleep. Beside the dog's foot, there was a harp. Someone else was already through the trapdoor.

"Snape must have gotten here first," Ron whispered, which I tried to ignore.

Then we walked further into the room and closer to the dog.

"What now?" Ron asked Hermione and me.

I looked at the trapdoor that we had to go in and saw that it was being blocked by the dog's large paw.

"I guess we're going to have to move it," I whispered, then to Harry I said, "Keep playing, we'll try to move it..."

All three of us went over to the dog and after a few pushes, we managed to get the paw away from the door and we opened it up. It was completely dark.

"Okay, who goes first?" Hermione asked nervously.

"I'll go first," I said.

Ron gave me an encouraging smile as I prepared to jump. I jumped through the trapdoor and landed onto something that was rather soft. It almost felt like a plant.

"Are you okay?" Ron called down to me.

"Yeah," I called back up. "It's a soft landing, you can jump!"

Within minutes the others were down in the dark room with me. The only noise that we heard from the dog was when Harry stopped playing the music and jumped down into the room.

"What is this stuff?" Harry asked.

When my eyes finally adjusted to the dark, I saw the plant for the first time. Then I heard Hermione scream. The plant was now winding its way around each of us, trapping us there.

"What's happening?" Ron said, trying to break free from the plant.

All of us were squirming around, trying to get away from the plant. Then, I suddenly remembered something.

"Everyone!" I shouted. "Stop moving - this is Devil's Snare, the more you move the more difficult it is to escape!"

"Well, that's comforting!" Ron yelled and struggled more.

"Do you remember how to get rid of it?" Hermione said, trying to stay still.

I tried to think, Neville had told me all about this stuff. He mentioned that there was one thing that could destroy it, but I couldn't remember what exactly.

"Wait, I remember this from Herbology!" Hermione yelled. "Devil's Snare can't stand light!"

"That's it!" I yelled.

Then Hermione pulled out her wand and said something that made blue fire out of her wand causing the plant to unravel itself from us all. When the plant cleared, we ran into a nearby passageway to make sure that it couldn't get us again.

"Lucky you two pay attention in class..." Harry said as we walked through the passageway.

After we walked a little further, we could hear some something. It was a rustling noise coming from a distant room.

"What is that?" Ron asked.

"It sounds like...wings," Harry answered him.

When we walked into the room, I glanced up at the ceiling and saw something that looked a little bit like birds, but I didn't pay too much attention to them because I noticed a door in front of us.

"It's locked..." Hermione said moving the handle.

"Well, those birds have to be here for something," Ron said looking up.

Then I looked closer at them and realized that they weren't birds at all.

"Those are...keys..." I said looking up at them.

Further ahead of us stood a single broom. We would have to catch the key.

"Which one do you think it is?" Harry asked us.

"It's probably going to be an older one," I said looking at the handle.

"Like that one?" Ron said pointing to an old, silver key that was flying around.

"I think this one is up to you, Harry" I said. "You're the Seeker..."

He nodded and went to grab the broom, but right when he took off, all of the keys scattered around. It looked to be impossible, but someone had already gotten past here before us, so it shouldn't be too much of a problem for the Gryffindor Seeker.

Harry flew around the ceiling while being somehow attacked by the many keys that flew around him. Somehow, in all of that confusion, he managed to find it.

"There it is!" Harry yelled. "I'll throw it to you and you all will have to open the door so I can get through all of these keys!"

When he tossed the key to us, we quickly unlocked the door and ran in. Within seconds, Harry, followed by the many keys, came flying through. Luckily, I managed to slam the door shut before any of them got through.

"Now what?" Hermione asked looking ahead.

The room that was pitch black before them, suddenly filled with light. In front of them stood what I recognized to be a giant chessboard.

"What are we supposed to do here?" I asked.

"Isn't it obvious?" Ron said. "We'll have to play our way across."

"And how do we do that?" Hermione asked eyeing the chessmen.

"We'll have to join the game..." Harry said. "We have to take the places of some of the pieces."

We all turned to Ron, knowing that he was the best chess player out of all of us. He would have to lead us.

"Okay..." Ron said looking at the board. "Harry, you take the place of the bishop...Hermione, the rook...Rose, you can be the castle..."

"What about you?" Harry asked.

"I'll be a knight," Ron walked over to take his place and the rest of us did the same.

Then the game began. Many of our pieces were smashed, but we managed to get some of theirs too.

"I'm going to have to be taken," Ron said towards the end of the game.

"NO!" we all yelled at him.

"It has to be done," he told us. "When I move forward, Harry you'll be able to checkmate the king."

"But-" Harry said.

"Do you want to get to that Stone or not?" he asked.

Then he moved forward a single space and the queen moved to take him. When the queen struck him, she smashed him into the ground and Hermione screamed.

"Checkmate!" Harry said as he moved to his new space.

The king took his crown off his head and threw it to the ground. The game was over and we had won. We all ran over to Ron to see if he was okay. He was knocked out.

"Hermione, try to wake Ron up," Harry said. "When he does, you two use the brooms from the key-room to get out and when you do, go straight to the Owlery and send Dumbledore a letter."

She nodded and said, "Good luck."

The two of us ran on and ended up in front of a set of potions. There were seven of them lined up together, each a different shape and color.

We continued to walk forward because there was nothing in our way, but as soon as we moved forward, two fires shot up. One fire, which was black, stood in front of us and a purple fire that was behind us.

"Look," Harry pointed over to a scroll that sat nearby.

I walked over and picked it up.

"Danger lies before you, while safety lies behind, Two of us will help you, which ever you will find, One among us seven will let you move ahead, Another will transport the drinker back instead, Two among our number only holds nettle wand, Three of us are killers, waiting bidden in line. Choose, unless you wish to stay here forevermore, To help you in your choice, we give you these clues four: First, however slyly the poison tries to hide You will always find some nettle wine's left side; Second, different are those who stand at either end, But if you would move onward, neither is your friend; Third, as you see clearly, all are different size, Neither dwarf nor giant holds death in their insides; Fourth, the second left and second on right Are twins once you taste them, though different at first sight," I read aloud.

"So...what?" Harry said confused.

"Give me a second," I said.

I read through the riddle several times, trying to understand every word.

"Okay," I said after a few minutes. "The smallest bottle gets you through the black fire and the round bottle gets you through the purple fire."

"Are you sure?" my brother asked.

"Positive."

We took the smallest bottle and both took a drink from it and began to walk through the black flames and into the next room. Inside of this room stood another person. I had been right all along: it wasn't Snape. It wasn't even Voldemort.

It was Quirrell.

"You!" Harry said.

"Yes," the man in the turban said. "I knew that the two of you would follow me here."

"I thought that - wasn't Snape-" Harry started, but was interrupted by Quirrell's laughter.

"Severus?" he laughed. "I guess it is quiet reasonable. Next to him, no one would suspect p-poor s-stuttering Quirrell? I guess I fooled everyone then, especially the two of you, everyone suspected Snape, just as planned."

"Not exactly," I said. "I never believed that it was him."

"Oh, really?" Quirrell sneered. "I guess it was a dead giveaway that it wasn't him when he stopped me from trying to kill you just before Christmas."

"That's right," I told him. "I trusted Snape from the very beginning."

"How touching," he mocked me.

"But, he tried to kill me!" Harry said.

"That would be me, Potter! I would have succeeded too if it wasn't for your friend Miss Granger knocking me over when she set Snape on fire. If I would have had a little more time, I would have had you off your broom if it wasn't for Snape muttering the counter curse."

"He was trying to save me?" Harry asked.

At that moment I had to resist the urge to yell I told you so right into his face.

"Of course he was, why do you think he refereed the next match? Pity that the man had to waste his time with both of you, being as I'm going to be killing both of you tonight."

He waved his wand and suddenly we were tied up in a rope.

"You've ruined everything for me, the two of you have. I could have had the Stone months ago! You two just had to go after that troll I set out on Halloween, not that it mattered, Snape had already known what I was up to by then-"

"That's because Snape was smart enough to see right through you, you sneaky little bastar-" I spat.

"Enough!" Quirrell yelled and turned to a mirror that sat behind him, the Mirror of Erised.

Why had Dumbledore moved the mirror here? Maybe he didn't think that anyone would come down here...it was miles underneath the school.

"I see the Stone...I'm presenting it to him...where is it?" Quirrell said, obviously frustrated.

Quirrell began to pace in front of the mirror and kept glancing sideways at it as he whispered to himself.

"But...I thought that Snape hated me," Harry said.

"He does hate you," he said. "Your father went to school with him and they hated each other. I sometimes wonder why he doesn't treat you the same way, Rose..."

Quirrell's voice drifted off and Harry looked sideways at me.

"But...the other day I saw you come out of your room and you were crying...I thought that Snape was threatening you again," Harry said.

"My master sometimes demands too much of me...he has to punish me."

"You mean that he was with you?" I asked.

"He is always with me," Quirrell said, still looking in the mirror.

At that moment, I realized something that I wanted more than anything. It was the Stone, just so Quirrell couldn't use it.

"How does this mirror work, Master?" Quirrell said.

"Use the boy...use the girl..." a voice said that seemed to come from Quirrell himself.

"Of course," Quirrell said. "Come over here, both of you, tell me what you see."

The rope holding us still suddenly disappeared and we were able to move again. When we did, we walked over to the mirror.

"What do you two see?" Quirrell asked desperately as we stood in front of the mirror.

When I looked in the mirror I saw myself and my brother, both smiling. I held the Stone in my hand and gave it to Harry who put it into his pocket. I looked over and saw Harry's eyes widen and look down into his pocket. I could slightly see a small, ruby stone sticking out of his pocket. It was the Philosopher's Stone!

"What is it?" Quirrell asked.

"I...just won the Quidditch Cup...I'm shaking hands with Dumbledore..." Harry said.

"What about you?" Quirrell said desperately. "Do you see something?"

I thought quickly, what was something that I wanted?

"I see...Professor Snape...kicking your sorry ass-" I snarled in his direction.

Quirrell cursed at me and threw us off to the side.

"They are lying!" the voice said again. "Let me speak to them!"

"Master, are you sure?" he asked.

"Just do it, Quirrell!" the voice yelled.

Then, for the first time, Quirrell unraveled the turban that sat on his head. When he turned around, something terrible sat on the back of his head. It was a face and I tried not to scream.

"Harry and Rose Potter..." Voldemort whispered to us.


	18. Chapter 18

The man on the back of my teacher's head was Voldemort and he was hideous. It took all of my power to not run away from this horrid face that was speaking to me. My scar was burning so much that I could hardly think.

"See what I have become?" Voldemort said. "I'm hardy even a person now...I have to share someone else's body just to survive. Unicorn blood is the only thing that can strengthen me at the moment, which faithful Quirrell here has allowed me to do. Once I have the Elixir of Life, I will be able to have a body of my own. All you have to do hand me that stone that you have in your pocket, Harry."

He knew. Voldemort had somehow known that my brother now held the only thing that could bring him back. Harry stumbled backwards, this angered Voldemort.

"Don't be an idiot, Potter!" the face yelled. "Just give me the stone! You don't want to have the same fate as your parents, do you? The died begging for mercy-"

"LIAR!" Harry yelled.

"Ah, bravery, I see," Voldemort said in a mocking tone. "Your parents were brave too. They put up a good fight, but lost in the end. Your mother died trying to protect you both, you wouldn't want that to be in vain, would you Harry?"

"They didn't lose, Voldemort," I said. "You died too, remember?"

Voldemort's face turned to my own, fury being the only emotion that I could read.

"If I was really dead, then how am I here now you silly girl!" he snarled.

"I don't know if you noticed," I snarled back. "But you're on the back of someone's head, you're pathetic."

"I'm pathetic?" Voldemort growled. "We'll see about that! SEIZE THEM!"

Quirrell lunged for us both, throwing us against a nearby wall. My head hit the wall hard and I felt a little dazed.

"GET THE BOY FIRST! HE HAS THE STONE!" Voldemort yelled.

Then Quirrell ran over to Harry and began to choke him. Then something happened that made Quirrell scream in agony and back away from my brother. I looked at his hands, which appeared to be badly burnt.

"I can't touch him Master!" Quirrell yelled.

"Then kill him, you fool!" Voldemort ordered.

Quirrell reached for his wand and pointed it at Harry, but as soon as he went to say something, I ran over to him. I grabbed him by the face, which burned on contact.

"AAAAAAAHHHHHH!" he yelled in pain.

My scar was now burning even worse and I was started to lose my vision because of the intense pain that I had. I ran at Quirrell again and grabbed onto his arm. Quirrell screamed even louder as Harry joined in with grabbing him and making him burn with our very touch. I didn't understand why this was happening, but it seemed to be working.

"KILL THEM!" I heard Voldemort yelling at Quirrell.

Then, I felt myself drift off. Everything suddenly went black and the pain of my scar went away. I thought for a moment that I had finally died because of the pain. Or maybe Quirrell had finally killed me without realizing it. I hope that Harry was okay...

-

I opened my eyes and saw someone standing in front of me. It was Dumbledore.

I sat up quickly, my head spinning with thoughts about what had just happened. Nothing made sense. How did I make it to the Hospital Wing? Where was the Stone? What happened to Quirrell? What happened to Voldemort? Did he return?

Why was Dumbledore here?

"Good afternoon, Rose," Dumbledore smiled at me. "Ah, I see that your brother is waking up too."

I looked over next to me and saw Harry lying in a bed that was only a few feet away from me. His eyes blinked and he suddenly sat up, much like I had, and reached for his glasses.

"Where's the Stone?" Harry looked around.

"Professor, it was Quirrell!" I said. "Did he get the Stone?"

"Is Voldemort back?" Harry asked.

"Calm down both of you," Dumbledore said calmly. "Quirrell does not have the Stone."

"Then who does?" I asked.

Dumbledore seemed to ignore my question and looked around the room for a moment. I then noticed all sorts of candy and gifts that were lying around the room.

"From your friends and admirers," Dumbledore smiled at us. "What happened between Professor Quirrell and the two of you in the dungeons was a complete secret...so, naturally, the entire school knows."

Then I noticed something odd sitting in the corner of the room.

"Is that a...toilet seat?" I asked.

"Indeed," Dumbledore said, sounding amused. "I believe Misters Fred and George Weasley sent you that..."

"How long have we been here?" Harry asked.

"Three days...I believe that Miss Granger and Mister Weasley will be pleased to hear that you two have recovered...they have been worrying Madam Pomfrey," Dumbledore smiled.

"But sir..." I began, but was stopped when Dumbldore put a hand up.

"I arrived in time to stop Quirrell from taking the Stone from Harry," Dumbledore said. "Although, I believe that the two of you were taking care of that matter quite well..."

"So you were the one pulling me off of him..." Harry said.

"I thought that I would be too late," Dumbledore frowned. "I do apologize Rose, I was unable to grab you before you fell..."

"It's fine," I said. "So what's going to happen with the Stone now?"

"It's going to be destroyed."

"What?" Harry asked.

"What about Nicolas Flamel and his wife, won't they die?" I asked.

"You two know about Nicolas?" Dumbledore asked, sounding quite pleased.

We nodded, thinking back to all the research that we had to do on him for all that time.

"They will have enough Elixir to last them for a little while longer," Dumbledore said. "They've had a long life, they are ready to move on."

Then Dumbledore looked around at all the assortment of candy, appearing to be reading the labels.

"So...does that mean that Vo-I mean You-Know-Who-" Harry started.

"Call him Voldemort, Harry," he smiled. "Fear of a name increases fear of the thing itself."

"Yes, sir," Harry said. "Does that mean that Voldemort is still out there?"

Dumbledore nodded slowly, looking slightly distressed about this.

"He's going to keep trying to come back, isn't he?" I asked.

"I believe so," Dumbledore said. "As you saw down in the dungeons, he doesn't have much sympathy for others. He left Quirrell to die there. The two of you have only delayed his return, but if we are able to continue delaying this, then I believe that he may not return."

Harry and I nodded, knowing now that Voldemort won't stop without a fight. This could go on for a long time.

"Voldemort said that he killed my mom because she tried to stop him from killing us, why did he want to kill us in the first place?" Harry asked.

"That...is a complicated question," Dumbledore said. "I am sorry to tell that I can not tell you that right now. I do not believe that you are quite ready yet."

We stayed silent for a moment, and then I asked him something.

"Why couldn't Quirrell touch us?"

"You're mother died protected the two of you," Dumbledore explained. "Love is something that Voldemort will never be able to understand and because he is filled with so much hatred, your mother's love protects you two from him."

We both nodded, but this wasn't the last of our questions.

"Do you know who sent the invisibility cloak to us?" Harry asked.

"That was me," Dumbledore's eyes twinkled. "Your father left it with me and I figured that the two of you might find it quite useful. Your father used to use it to sneak into the kitchen after hours..."

"There's something else..." Harry said. "Quirrell said that Snape hates me because he hated my dad...is that true?"

"The two of them did detest each other very much," Dumbledore said calmly.

"Then why does he treat Rose any differently?" Harry asked.

Dumbledore smiled and looked out of the window.

"Professor Snape is a very curious person," he said while smiling, then he looked at me. "Perhaps it is because he doesn't see your father in you, Rose. Perhaps he sees someone else..."

"So...one more thing," Harry said. "How is it that the mirror gave me the Stone?"

"Ah," Dumbledore smiled. "The Stone only comes to a person that has a desire to have it, but not to use it. This is why Quirrell and Voldemort could not reach it."

Then he turned his attention to a box of Bettie Bott's Every Flavor Beans box.

"I was unfortunate to come across a vomit flavored one when I was young," he commented. "I think I might be safe with this one though..."

Dumbledore picked up a golden-brown bean and put it into his mouth and chocked it back.

"Alas!" he said. "Ear wax!"

-

"The whole school is talking about it!" Ron said when we came out of the hospital wing later that day.

"So, what really happened?" Hermione asked.

Then, Harry and I told them everything as we walked through the hallways of the school.

"Well, I guess that it's not over then..." Ron said.

"Yeah, I guess not," I told him.

When we arrived at the Fat Lady's portrait, everyone went into the common room except me. I told them that I would meet up with them later and I just wanted to walk around for a little while.

I walked through the corridors alone for a little while, not talking to anyone despite the looks I was getting from everyone. I saw Neville standing in the hallway and he smiled over at me, apparently understanding why I had to stop him the night before. I smiled back, but decided to keep moving on.

It was getting late when and most of the castle was off to bed. I just kept on walking, just thinking about what was going to happen in the future. Voldemort was going to try to come back, he wouldn't stop at anything. I wasn't sure how long it would take for him to come back, but no one else did either. When he did come back, I knew that he would go after Harry and me. I still wasn't sure why Voldemort was after the two of us in the first place, but I knew that I would have to be ready.

"What did I tell you about roaming the halls, Miss Potter?" a voice came from behind me.

I stopped in my tracks and turned to see Snape standing behind me. He walked over to me and I could almost see a hint of a smile on his face.

He continued to walk on and I walked beside him.

"You knew all along, didn't you?" I asked him after a while.

"That Quirrell couldn't be trusted?" he said. "I made some assumptions..."

"I guess that it should have been obvious..." I said.

"Why is that?" he asked.

"Well, normal people don't talk to their turbans..."

He looked down at me and for the first time I saw a real smile go on his face as he looked forward.

"He was trying to frame you, you know?" I said.

"I figured that..." Snape said. "I know that your brother believed that it was me..."

So he did hear them talking that day, apparently he didn't want to comment on it at the time.

"I know it doesn't matter, but I didn't think it was you," I said.

He remained silent, lost in thought apparently. We made our way up the stairs and in the direction of the Gryffindor Tower. We didn't say anything really until we reached the Fat Lady who was busy talking to another painting. I said the password to the painting, who nodded and opened up the door.

"Goodnight, Professor Snape," I smiled at him as I held the painting open.

"Goodnight, Miss Potter," he smiled back.

-

"Another year gone!" Dumbledore said at the end of the year feast the next night. "I hope that all of you have learned something this year, now you can go home for the summer break and empty them for next year!"

Everyone looked up at the headmaster, listening to every word he said.

"Now, the House Cup!" he smiled. "I believe as the points now stand, Gryffindor is in last place 312 points, Hufflepuff in third with 352, Ravenclaw with 426, and Slytherin with 522."

Slytherin cheered.

"However, I have a few extra points to give to people," Dumbledore smiled at all of us. "First to Ronald Weasley, for the best-played game of chess, I award Gryffindor fifty points!"

Everyone cheered and Ron went red in the face.

"Second, to Miss Hermione Granger, for the logic that she was able to use even when she was stuck, I give Gryffindor fifty points!"

Gryffindor cheered even louder and Hermione had a big smile on her face.

"And third, and fourth, to Mister Harry Potter for pure nerve and outstanding courage and Miss Rose Potter for her logic with potions, bravery, and her ability to see the truth that lies within people, I award fifty points to each of them!"

At this point, Gryffindor house was cheering so loudly, I couldn't hear anything else. At the teacher's table, I saw Dumbledore give me a wink and I almost think that I saw Snape give me a small smile, though I might have been mistaken.

"We're even with Slytherin!" I heard several people saying frantically.

"And finally to Mister Neville Longbottom," Dumbledore said, everyone going silent. "It takes a great deal of bravery to stand up to our enemies, but just as much to stand up to our friends - I award him ten points!"

The entire room, aside from Slytherin, was cheering. The colors that flew above us, once having green on them, now became the Gryffindor colors-we had won!

-

Just as I got off of the train, I heard someone say,"That was quite a year, Potter."

I turned around to see a familiar blond, only with his usual sneer missing. And his bodyguards were missing too.

"I second that." I sighed.

He was about to say something else, but his eyes caught something behind me so he quickly looked at me said, "Granger's coming this way, I have to go. See you next year."

I nodded.

"Rose," Hermoine said, coming up behind me, "What did he want?" she asked, narrowing her eyes at Draco's retreating form.

"Nothing, just the usual." I lied.

She rolled her eyes, and then smiled, "Promise that you'll write everyday!"

"Sure," I laughed, knowing that I probably wouldn't.

Hermione ran over to Harry and I followed her. She gave us both hugs, and told us she would miss us. Ron hugged me and told Harry that he would write. When I saw Neville get off the train and go over to his gran, I ran over to him.

"You must be Rose Potter," Ms. Longbottom said smiling.

I nodded and smiled at her.

"Neville's told me all about you in his letters, I just didn't think he would ever stop-"

"GRAN!" Neville stopped her, going deeply red in the face.

I laughed and hugged him goodbye and waved to Ms. Longbottom.

When Harry and I walked just outside of Kings Cross Station, we saw the Dursleys waiting for us. I took one look back and smiled.

I couldn't wait to go back.


End file.
